As the West Indies, No.8 on the International Cricket Council (ICC) ranking list, and No.10 Zimbabwe, start their brief series with the Twenty20 International at the Queen’s Park Oval today, the present heavyweights, Australia, India, South Africa and New Zealand, are battling for top places on the other side of the globe.
While the phenomenal Sachin Tendulkar adds another record to his huge collection with ODI’s first double-hundred, Dale Steyn and Shaun Tait threaten bowling’s 100 mph barrier and a thrilling match in Kolkata confirms the value of Test cricket, a contest between a West Indies team without some of its high-profile players and the young, inexperienced Zimbabweans hardly registers a bleep on the game’s radar.
Yet, brief as it is, it holds obvious significance for each team.
For reasons generally related to politics of one kind or another, the West Indies and Zimbabwe have both gone through turbulent times. Results over the next couple of weeks won’t magically end them but they come at a critical juncture.
The West Indies begin under a new coach, their seventh in 10 years. After two Australians, a West Indian, Ottis Gibson, has been installed.
It won’t take long to discover whether, like those before him, his efforts are undermined by a dysfunctional board, injudicious player power and inherent insularity or whether he will receive the universal support necessary for success.
It would be a complete, and welcome change if it happens to be the latter. The early signs are not promising for his credentials have already been questioned in high places.
Gibson only met his new charges on the eve of today’s match. His impact can hardly be assessed from this series’ outcome but, given the status of the opposition, a winning start would be helpful, defeat an immediate setback.
Once one of the most dominant and feared teams in all international sports, the West Indies have gone into a tailspin they have been unable to arrest, far less turn around.
Less than a week ago, they were ending their limited-overs campaign in Australia with their sixth consecutive defeat.
It was by eight wickets with 50 balls remaining, a virtual two-to-one in a Twenty20 International. The margins in the 50-overs version were equally devastating.
It swiftly ended the optimism created by the spirited performances in the last two matches in the preceding Test series in December.
The absence of Ramnaresh Sarwan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Dwayne Bravo, Sulieman Benn, Adrian Barath and Jerome Taylor through various injuries obviously diminished the team but there were signals from Australia, quite apart from the thrashings, that indicated other problems.
One was captain Chris Gayle’s defiant assertion after the second ODI that there would be changes and that he would make them himself, without reference to any selector.
It might explain why Brendan Nash and Gavin Tonge, both in the originally selected 15, did not play a single match – not even the warm-up against the Prime Minister’s XI – and Wavell Hinds, a late minute replacement for the injured Bravo, played five.
Gayle has been given what West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) chief executive Ernest Hilaire described as “compassionate leave” to miss today’s match.
He has not seen his mother since he rushed back to Kingston from the previous engagement in Australia after she was hospitalised with a heart condition.
When he returns for the ODIs, Sarwan and Bravo are likely to be back as well. Barath, Benn, Chanderpaul and the younger Bravo, Darren, have already recovered from their ailments and are in the team today.
The West Indies are in no position to underestimate anyone and will find the Zimbabweans enthusiastic opponents with the specific mission of proving that they are worthy of returning to Test cricket within two years.
But, at full strength, this series should provide the West Indies with ideal preparation for tougher assignments to come – the World Twenty20 championship in the Caribbean to be followed by home Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s against South Africa.
The selectors have flagged their intentions for the long-term by omitting for today’s match Nash, Tonge, Hinds, Narsingh Deonarine, Travis Dowlin, Runako Morton and Lendl Simmons of those who were in Australia.
They have opted for the new generation of batsmen, Barath, Darren Bravo and Andre Fletcher.
While there won’t be space right away for all the young ones (Kraigg Brathwaite kept knocking on their door with his 80 in Friday’s warm-up against the tourists), they can expect international exposure, sooner rather than later, in the promised, reactivated ‘A’ team tours.
For their part, Zimbabwe have arrived with an explicit agenda.
They have had as many internal problems as the West Indies, if for different reasons.
Disgruntled with their board, their leading, experienced players, most of them white, quit six years ago. They could not raise a truly competitive team from those who remained, almost entirely youngsters from the black population which had, until the last quarter-century or so, not been truly involved in the game.
The upshot was that they realistically, if reluctantly, opted out of Test cricket, with the intention of returning when standards improved. It has taken a long time but now many of those who joined the exodus are returning, encouraged by the political progress under the new unity government, to play and coach.
In the interim, those who took their places, such as the present captain Prosper Utseya, Hamilton Masakadza, Elton Chigumbura and Vusi Sibanda, have gained international experience, if only at ODI level, and improved.
The structure of domestic cricket, wrecked almost beyond repair by inept management during the difficult times, has been remodelled and a new system of franchises introduced.
Reliable reports speak of an upsurge in interest and more intense, competitive cricket. A crowd of 7,000 was at the Harare Sports Club for the Twenty20 final just over a week ago.
Heath Streak, Dave Houghton and Alistair Campbell, three of their stalwarts before the split with the board, are back in coaching and selection positions. The former Surrey and England batsman Alan Butcher has just been named head coach and will join the team for the three ODIs in St.Vincent.
Houghton, probably their finest batsman who averaged 43 in his 22 Tests, has cautioned not to expect too much, too soon.
He’s not going around predicting a 4-1 Zimbabwe triumph.
But he and the others are confident that, in two years, they can prove they are again up to Test standard. Their mission starts here and the West Indies need to be wary of them.
