For the first time since the pandemic, full attendance at major cricket matches returns to Trinidad – at THE Queen’s Park Oval and the Brian Lara Stadium. Starting Friday, West Indies and India men play three ODIs at the Oval, one T20 game in Tarouba, two T20 games in St Kitts and two more in Florida.
They could be a test for the possible return of full stadiums for the popular Caribbean Premier League, which starts at the end of August.
Restrictions on the number of spectators were lifted when the four-day regional first-class race resumed in Trinidad in May; although the almost empty stadiums did not suggest it. Here in T&T and other regional settings, the veil was partially lifted for the Youth World Cup matches in January and February; and for the ODI, Test and T20 matches against Ireland and England.
Antigua and Barbuda, St Lucia, Dominica and Guyana completely lifted restrictions on the number of spectators for the Bangladesh Test, T20 and ODI series last month. Normal service is resuming.
Not so much for West Indies ODI cricket. In the wider context of red and white ball cricket, the picture is mixed at worst. WI Test cricket scores have steadily improved under Kraigg Brathwaite over the past two years. The Caribbean team is currently sixth out of nine in the World Test Cricket Championship table.
No, we are not a better Test than New Zealand and England. This is a snapshot of results over a two-year cycle, which began in July 2021. We’re only halfway through. However, the upside of our long game is undeniable. We recorded series wins at home against Bangladesh and England this year.
And after a disastrous T20 World Cup last October, the T20 team, in general, has made small gains. They recorded series wins at home against England and Bangladesh, but were swept by India away.
For ODIs, we have been a team of incontrovertible horror. WI started the year with a series loss to Ireland, one of the newest entrants to top-level international cricket, and a team they were expected to beat. After a series sweep of a weak Netherlands side, they themselves were swept by Pakistan in Pakistan.
The latest installment of their dreadful ’22 was being swept from Bangladesh to Guyana. Their next opponent is India, kicking off in Port of Spain in two days. Despite recent tournament results, India have some of the best, deepest and most talented squads in both white-ball varieties of the game.
Our ODI inadequacies are painful to watch. This is the game in which we won the first two World Cups in 1975 and 1979, and were the losing finalists in the third – in India – in 1983. Test cricket launched the rise of a group of small, mostly island nations in the best in the world, made us walk tall as a people and gave lyrical inspiration to poets like David Rudder. But ODI success played a big role in this.
The game of ODI has changed from all recognition. In the 1975 final at Lords, WI batted first against Australia and scored 291 for eight in 60 overs. Today, most halfway competent teams will knock that total down in 45 overs. For a number of reasons, not least the quality of products produced by our talent factory, we have not continued.
The biggest problem that Bangladesh, Pakistan and Ireland exposed is our inability to bowl a full 50 overs. Our groups come out swinging for the fences at over 20 out of 50; playing like they were number 18 out of 20. They seem torn between when to ease and when to press.
In the last game, all-rounder Romario Shepherd, with only the last man for company, threw himself into everything with three overs to go. He left 15 or 20 runs on the table when he got out, sliding to bowl a full delivery.
If you’re reading this Desmond Haynes, Mr. Chief Selector, here’s something we should try. Bring at least two leaf anchor hoops – two grafts – to the team. Test cricketers with temperament. Kraigg Brathwaite (or John Campbell, provided he comes clean about his recently reported drug testing problem) and Jermaine Blackwood.
There is risk and there is reward. The potential risk is that a Brathwaite will have you batting at 260, rather than 300. The potential reward is that you won’t capitulate to sub-180, as you did in the last match.
T20 cricket has enriched our young players beyond their wildest dreams. It has also brought us bash-or-block temperamental players who show less patience than they should in the longer versions of cricket. You can’t eat KFC every day. Sometimes you have to take care of your mom.
ODI is its own thing and should be treated as such. It’s a long game. The side should not be as densely populated as it is by men who play mainly T20.
India signed off their tour of England with a thrilling ODI win in Manchester on Sunday. Twenty-four-year-old Rishabh Pant, marked for stardom and leading his cricket-mad country, reached a magnificent hundred. Pant, who already has five Test hundreds and 15 50-plus Test scores, is the player we wish our hot mid-twenties batsmen Nicholas Pooran and Shimron Hetmyer were (Hetmyer not playing in ODIs). I hope the boundaries of Queen’s Park are large enough.
The author is a former columnist for Wisden Cricket Monthly
