Slide Into Mortality

THE skier West Indies wicket-keeper Courtney Browne dropped of Sachin Tendulkar in the World Cupen counter in Gwalior would give Derryck Murray sleepless nights. An overconfident Browne let the ball spill out of his gloves and with it spilled the chances of a Windies victory. For a team that in a manner 'invented' modern-day fielding, especially with the likes of Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, and Gus Logie, Browne's miscalculation summed up the falling standards of a team that had the winning formula all sealed for a decade and more.

The team now still has the brashness but not the class that allowed the earlier generation to get away with it. For the Caribbean cricket juggernaut, the crucible with the winning formula has developed a leak and the team management doesn't quite know how to plug it.

Says West Indies team manager Wesley Hall: "We are a team in transition. It will take some time for us to freeze in the right combination. What everybody forgets when they discuss us is that all the other teams have come up to our level. We haven't fallen to theirs."

Or maybe, even while other teams have come up and the Windies formula is still there, except for Brian Lara the team no longer has the players to whip it into action. Says Man Singh, manager of the Indian team that won the World Cup in 1983: "Their main pace bowlers, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, are over the hill. Their current line-up of bowlers is also more prone to injuries than the generation they replaced. You rarely heard of Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshal or Michael Holding sustaining such frequent or extended injuries."

 Perhaps, part of the general problem is the fitness requirements of cricket today, especially in fielding—with the South Africans leading in the area by honing their skills to awesome levels and taking it beyond what the Windies ever took it.

While the Caribbeans never lacked in raw talent, they never got to channel and focus it into a cohesive, world-beating team till Lloyd's leadership changed it all. But even before the emergence of Lloyd, the team always had an abundance of raw cricketing blood which earned them the label of the most hot and cold side of the '60s.

But the current team seems to lack in both talent and leadership. Captain Richie Richardson doesn't command the same respect as his predecessor Viv Richards and that has led to personality clashes with star batsman Lara. The team is heavily dependent on Lara because of Richardson's and Jimmy Adams' poor performances in recent outings. The captain is also facing the heat from former Test players calling for his removal as captain, one of them being Joel Garner.

Also, coach Andy Roberts has gone on record saying that the "boys don't listen to him". Says Singh: "They have a coach whom the team doesn't listen to and a captain who would have a problem getting into the side if he weren't the captain." There are also some who think that the short period when Walsh led the side in the absence of a Richardson plagued by 'cricket fatigue' was a much more spirited side, if short on talent. The spirit certainly came through when Walsh squared the three-Test series at Mohali, leading the charge with a spectacular spell of bowling which left Tendulkar calling him the world's best.

But for a team that you almost lost to without stepping on the cricket field, complacency has seen the lack of grooming of a second line of defence. Says former Test cricketer Dilip Sardesai: "Part of it, of course, has to do with the channel explosion in the Caribbeans itself which has seen youngsters take to sports like basketball. " Skipper Richardson, however, does not agree. "People in the West Indies are exposed to other sports as much as people in other parts of the cricketing world. The phenomenon isn't as singular as it is made out to be."

What's still singular, however, is the arrogance of most of the players. For most of them the long reign as champions isn't quite over. But while Lloyd's men had the statistics to prop that bluster, the current lot haven't built up their portfolio yet.