CRICBUZZ
The news that Clive Lloyd has been appointed chairman of the West Indies selection committee might have triggered a smidgen of hope in the collective breast of a long-suffering cricketing public. The former West Indies captain represents a reminder of better times for Caribbean cricket; a time when the Islands conquered and ruled over world cricket, with hardly a worthy challenge coming from any quarter.
In fact, the Guyanese left-hander is widely regarded as the chief architect of the West Indies' world dominance. It was he who sourced the personnel and initiated the strategy of the four-man pace attack that made the West Indies almost unbeatable and ushered in their reign. He was the father figure that presided over a disparate group of virtuosos, some residing in Islands more than 1400 miles apart, and moulded them into probably the greatest unit the game has seen.
Now, there are some who argue that only the most imbecilic would have difficulty winning with a team staffed with so many great players; that directing such an awesomely good side required little thought. But it was Lloyd, according to those in the know, who brought them together and had them pulling in the same direction.
One quality that will serve him well in his new post is his knack for identifying new talent. Michael Holding was a pacy but green fast bowler with only 16 wickets from a handful of first-class games when, to the surprise of almost everyone, he made the trip to Australia for the traumatic 1975-76 tour. Later, another lightning-quick Jamaican, Patrick Patterson, seemed to find favour with Lloyd even before the Jamaican selectors took him seriously.
In 1977, for a crucial game against the visiting Pakistan team, Lloyd made the case for leg-spinner David Holford, much to the derision of many pundits and fans. They had little to say, however, as Holford captured five important wickets in the game and scored 37 vital runs in the second innings. The West Indies won the game and thereby series.
Still, Lloyd's captaincy coincided with a period of plenty in West Indies cricket. Those were the days when gifted players rushed to the fore like waves on the many pristine beaches found throughout the Caribbean; when players like Wayne Daniel, Sylvester Clarke, Anthony Gray, Collis King, Franklyn Stephenson, Maurice Foster and Carlyle Best could not command a regular place in Lloyds team, or the one he handed over to Vivian Richards.
These days things are very different. Cupboards that were bursting with cricket talent are now distressingly bare. As a consequence, the West Indies no longer tower over the other cricket playing nations like they did in their glory days.
There is a line in "Rally Round The West Indies," the song adopted as the West Indies cricket team's anthem: Some of the old generals have retired and gone,
and the runs don't come as they did before. Neither have the wickets.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul recently turned 40 and has provided most of what little backbone the West Indies' batting has exhibited since Brian Lara left in 2007. But the stodgy left-hander made his debut in 1994, and precious few approaching anything like ability has come on the scene since. Now on his last legs as an international player, he will leave a gaping hole that will take a whole lot of filling once he decides to hang up his helmet. Batsmen like Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels and Darren Bravo have been very good on their day, but have lacked the consistency to ensure the West Indies a regular supply of runs.
Curtly Ambrose made his appearance in the late 1980s, when everyone in the Caribbean considered it a given that the production line would continue to deliver great fast bowlers as it had in the past. It hasn't happened. Bowlers like Franklyn Rose, Mervyn Dillon, Kemar Roach, Fidel Edwards and Jerome Taylor have delivered the odd incisive spell, but again, the consistency has been lacking. And combined with problems of injury and loss of form, meant that opposition batsmen have been allowed to run up big totals too often for the West Indies to be competitive.
The foregoing has meant that the West Indies has not been a good team for a long time. They have not been batting or bowling well enough to seriously bother the top teams regularly. Simply put, their players have not been good enough. This is the great difficulty Clive Lloyd and his fellow selectors, Courtney Walsh, Eldine Baptiste and Courtney Browne, will face. New talent has to be created before it can be uncovered.
Many in the Caribbean will recoil at the assertion that the talent pool is not really overflowing. Yet all they need to do is look at the players that have come out of the other top cricket playing nations and compare. Any honest examination will show that whereas England, South Africa, Australia, and India have produced their fair share of world beaters since the 1990s, the West Indies has been lagging far behind in that regard. It is therefore evident that the biggest problem facing West Indies cricket is the production of cricketing talent to match that of the other top teams. That is the problem the Caribbean cricket authorities will have to resolve. Over the years captains have been changed, coaches have been fired, selectors have been replaced, and still the West Indies team, on the whole, has been very disappointing.
Clive Lloyd's appointment is indeed a good decision, and no one doubts he will do a good job within the limitations of the raw material available. Chances are, however, the West Indies side will only get better when the Caribbean develops more competent players. Until then not much else matters.
