It's time to relegate the Windies from top Tests

Quote:Australia v West Indies: It's time to relegate the Windies from top Tests

December 11, 2015
Ashley Mallett

Almost any club team in Australia would give this hopeless, inept West Indies team a run for its money.

In Hobart, Australia's first-day picnic against a dreadful attack must make the International Cricket Council sit up and introduce a relegation system in Test cricket.

The West Indies do not deserve a Test series against Steve Smith's side, which itself is in re-building mode after the retirements of Michael Clarke,  Chris Rogers, Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris' enforced end to his career through injury.

There needs to be a system whereby all nations play an equal number of Tests in any calendar year.

A points system must be established: a Test win gets 10 points, a draw two points, a tie no points.

With such a system the lowest points scorer in division one of Test-playing nations would be relegated to division two.

At this time the levels would comprise:

Division 1                          Division 2

Australia                            Bangladesh

England                              Zimbabwe

India                                  Scotland

New Zealand                      Ireland

South Africa                      Canada

Sri Lanka                            West Indies

Pakistan

How could the West Indies Test team have been  allowed to fall to a level of  mediocrity?

Their bowling was lamentable enough in Hobart on day one, however, it was their lack-lustre fielding and laidback attitude which almost gave the impression that this collective of so-called Test players had slowed to a state of inertia. Even the ABC commentators criticised them.

The pace attack was ordinary, the likes of Roach and Taylor going for more than six runs an over and their "spinners" – none of them – would bowl a decent batsman out in the middle of the night.

There is no excuse for West Indian cricket to be in this position. That some talk about the politics of cricket in the Caribbean, that there is a bunch of sovereign states which only becomes a union when cricket is played and the team called "West Indies" is the reason for the side's demise is poppycock.

Once the West Indies ruled the world. But they had a brilliant side, one which would decimate this Windies unit. Batsmen such as Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes and Clive Lloyd would have amassed more like 700 runs in a day against such dreadful opposition we saw in the field in Hobart.

There is no doubt that the cricket administration in the Caribbean have let down the emerging cricketers by not putting in place the sort of decent acadamies which have been long in place in Australia, New Zealand, England and India.

There was a time when they had a production line of brilliant fast bowlers. Think of all the great fast bowlers the Windies produced from the late 1970s right up to the early 1990s -  Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose et al were fabulous. Under Lloyd there was a relentless barrage of pace by the fast men, who asked for no quarter and gave the opposition nowt. They took no prisoners, just as all the great sides have down over the years.

Where are the greats of West Indies cricket now? Sadly there are none: not a solitary great player. There's no one approaching Garry Sobers, cricket's greatest all-round cricketer, nor the three Ws - Clyde Walcott, Everton Weeks and Frank Worrell - no Lawrence Rowe, Rohan Kanhai or Seymour Nurse. No one.

The West Indies cricket team of the past 20 years have been terrible.

Their mojo has gone. They are a bunch of leaderless individuals, albeit pretty well-paid amateurs masquerading as professional cricketers. Their belief in themselves individually is shot to pieces; their belief as a collective team is blown to bits. They are a sad and hapless bunch of very ordinary cricketers and they deserve to be relegated to play only Test matches against the likes of Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and lowly Scotland and Kenya.

There is a need for the ICC to take control and do something tangible to re-invent the West Indian cricket team.  They have to use all their resources: money, administrative expertise and coaching know-how to turn the Windies around. It may take five years, it may take a generation, but something must be done.

Today big cricket is big business. Any good cricket team thrives in an atmosphere of trust and empowerment. It was the job of the captain in years gone by to engender this atmosphere, where there is an environment built that the players would run through a brick wall for their leader. Today it is the coach who creates the atmosphere. Under great captains such as Ian Chappell, England's Ray Illingworth or Mark Taylor there was no need for a coach for these men did it all. As Chappelli oft says, "the only coach you need is to transport the team from A to B."

The ICC has  money aplenty to resurrect West Indies cricket.

Do nothing and the old will be tickled by the glories of the past Windies champions and the youngsters will shrug their shoulders and write the men from the Caribbean off as a bunch of no hopers.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/aust...ll03b.html

the totality of the consequences tabulated here by Mallet is the result of the class war in west indies cricket....

there is a class war in society general between the rich and their cohort and those who work for a living..the masses of ordinary people who must be kept in their place, homogenized in ways that neutralizes their collective revolutionary power.

in cricket in the west indies it manifested itself in the war between the admin and the players.  the admin has won and in the process they have neutralized the power of the players by producing  team so bland and un-threatening that they cannot play actual cricket to any serious level.

that is what the admin needs to ensure its control in perpetuity..a team that is incapable of rising up and asserting its place in power in the cricket reality.

it is a zero sum game really.  if the players rise it must be at the expense of the admin and vice versa.

and doh let Mallet and the rest fool allyuh.  the same equation exists in all of cricket..in all of society.  this is the principle, a contradiction that drives social reality currently..how a mutually existential opposed set continues to exist from day to day in complete warfare yet evolving  its way to a resolution nevertheless..a resolution in which one side of the equation wins at the complete extinction of the social reality of other

in the developed countries there has been war all along.  that is why there are players unions everywhere.  in Oz too the players union has been compromised but not openly and egregiously as in the west indies.  it has done with more sophistication.  in Oz the captain has jets as effectively been sidelined in all aspects of the game in which he was dominant.  the captain does not even have a say in selection anymore. 
you cant have a dominant captain and dominant administration. the power must reside somewhere and it is either in the hands of the captain and team or in the hands of the Bureaucracy. In Oz as elsewhere the Bureau have won and established dictatorships at the expense of the players. 

and the ICC is busy become like the FIFA and the Olympic Association..under the rubric that politics has no place in sport establishing a world government in sport that no individual nation can challenge under any circumstance.

in the west indies the wicb operates under that rubric, under the protection of the ICC that is ready to pounce anytime CARICOM intervenes directly.  it does not matter the harm the wicb does to the cricket.  that is not the point.  the point is the principle of bureaucratic control..that must be maintained and advanced period.  no challenge must be brooked..all such challenge must be neutralized

in west indies cricket the wicb represents a win for the elitist side that while not yet complete is huge enough and well on its way to complete resolution..that is the destruction of west indies cricket. the wicb has homogenized west indies cricket, pasteurized it like useless milk on supermarket shelves now devoid of any nutrition milk is supposed to contain.  the process  of preparation has killed all nutrients.

the west indies team, and its re-organization of west indian domestic structure has been so re-organized to produce the worst, repetitive form of cricket in the world .  I call it neo liberal cricket a form of the game without soul and heart

by the time the west indies elites are done west indies cricket will be pass-out in the school yard, backyard wherever...and the current parasite would have morphed into another host in the elitist  destruction of west indian ordinary, developmental potential on their way to joining Brave New World, the quintessential corporate dystopia


BUT THIS IS WHAT MAPOUI DESCRIBED FROM THE START WHEN HE BEGAN POSTING ON CRICKET BOARDS.  HIS PREMISE WAS THAT THERE WILL BE NO RESURGENCE IN WEST INDIES CRICKET UNTIL THERE IS BASIC SOCIAL REFORM OR REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL CHANGE IN THE WEST INDIES.

SO ALLYUH THINK THIS WAS WRONG ::confused::

NOT AT ALL. HERE WE ARE  ::LOL:: ::LOL:: ::LOL::

I can see the reasons why the west Indies should be relegated to the division 2 tier of cricket, but at the same time I'm not sure that's what the players need.

While they'll have a better chance of competing and a few victories will do their confidence a power of good, what then? They won't be used to playing the top sides and the team won't have developed any more than what its doing now.

the west indian house will be restructured on correct principle only when the peoples interest is represented in the administrative mix such it is re-organized to represent such...

only he popular interest contains all that nourishes the game and keeps it safe, developing, evolving as it should.

the minority sectarian elitist interest represented by the current administration has the overall vested interest of social control to maintain their social position and exploitation of all in society

there will be no positive change until the popular interest dominates

Mapu...ox farm mon  :-\ ...wanna be ox ford don  8) ...but only Cesar Chavez of cricket   ::

chairman will you tell Skimmy 51 to stop tracing me personally, individually.  if he has something to say about the subject matter I don't see how that is against any rule or law

I don't know the poster and he does not know me.  he shud refrain from that line of commentary and stop tracing my posts with it

[quote author=timmyj51 link=topic=101782.msg668909#msg668909 date=1449939052]
Mapu...ox farm mon  :-\ ...wanna be ox ford don  8) ...but only Cesar Chavez of cricket   ::
[/quote]

you said that already.  twice in proximity to my posts is too many!  yo do not know me!

40yr Ole
Wannabe yaardie

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the WICB had refused to accept the claims made by the CARICOM in their report, but, however, accepted that some changes are need to be done.

Anthony Astaphan, who will be used as an advisor to discuss the review by CARICOM's cricket sub-committee, said that he would look how both the organisations could help in improving the West Indies cricket.

more like wifan in another drag... :-[