The story of Dwayne Smith is an interesting one of a batsman searching for his maiden century in limited-overs cricket after a ton on debut in Test match cricket. He has spent a decade looking for the magical three figures and the day he got closest to it he fluffed the one stroke off his legs that would have got him to the landmark comfortably. That is the rum irony of cricket, a game known to be the great temptress when it comes to teasing its finest and then dumping them in some crazy game of fortunes like snakes and ladders.
Batsmen are so obsessed with the landmark of a century that they would do anything to get one if only to sample the high. Sometimes, they get such a high that they tend to throw it away immediately afterwards. In his exemplary innings in the Kotla ODI in which he looked twice as much at ease as any other colleague at the batting crease, Smith seemed determined to take the West Indies all the way. None else could find the timing to get the ball away on a night when a ball change was said to have pulled the rug out from under the Caribbean batsmen in the chase.
Like many in most modern cricket, Smith has been typecast as a limited-overs specialist despite that promising ton while batting in the middle order in a drawn Test at Newlands a decade ago. The Bajan may have found his place under the Chennai sun in joining the yellow brigade of the Super Kings after stints with Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers did little for the big-hitting reputation he holds today. His progress as a T20 blazer has, perhaps, been tied up with his CSK experience as the free-hitting opener who can set it up for team mates batting below him down the order.
There is something typically cavalier in his Caribbean approach to batting now. He could well be a reincarnation of his island’s swashbuckling openers who could also put an innings together. Dwayne is far from being in the league of Greendige and Haynes who were more the traditional types of the professional Test match era. However, the signs are that consistent opportunities are just about bringing in him the characteristic staying prowess of predecessors. Modern batsmen can’t be expected to match previous generations in the accumulative mode of batting. Their entire mental makeup is so different, geared as it is to the impulsive hitting style of the T20s. It is only the ODIs that give them some scope to learn there is more to it than the slam-bang of the 20-over limitation.
The West Indies are far from recapturing the glories of their high noon of the 1970s and ’80s. The sporting scene as well as the economics has changed far too much for that ever to happen. What the new emphasis on the shortest format plus the ODI as the training base means is the men from the Caribbean have a real chance of making the game work for them again. This particular West Indian side seems to have found the combination of hitters, utility men and the right mix of bowlers to make a good attempt at upping their image at the World Cup.
The century by Marlon Samuels in the opener is also an important turning point for the West Indies’ ODI campaign. His casual; elegance comes with an inbuilt ability to measure the odds of the situation and the conditions, in which sense he is a match winner. Their run-ins with their board over pay and contracts is not new and if they sport out the issues and keep the momentum they have achieved in the current ODI series, the West Indies would stand some chance of salvaging their reputation. They have not reached the final of a World Cup since 1983. This side can make the difference.
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