A defeat inside three days by an innings is as pathetic a display as any team can muster even if that display was illuminated by the brilliance of a 19-year-old batsman.
Yet, expect the apologists for the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to try and exact heavy mileage of Adrian Barath’s Test debut century in an effort to paper over the gaping holes of inefficiency and mismanagement of the region’s cricket.
Make no mistake about it, Barath’s second innings 104 was a beauty of an innings that not only placed the youngster in that rare club of debut Test centurions but also in the even more elite circle of teenagers to record the accomplishment.
Barath’s knock was a fearless, stroke-filled exhibition of batsmanship that was breathtakingly aggressive in its execution.
This is the type innings you hunger for these days in any form of cricket, more so the Test variety, given the danger of extinction it currently faces at the hands of its Twenty/20 relative.
It was not a drab, ultra-cautious compilation by a batsman too respectful of the Australian bowling demons and fearful of making a mistake which could dash his hopes of recording arguably the most distinguished achievement a batsman can aspire to outside of the innings Test world record.
No! It was not.
Barath waded into the Aussie pace-attack with the type of panache one would expect from a batsman who had been there and done that many times before.
He exhibited courage similar to that his mentor, the great Brian Lara, showed in his magical 277 made on the 1993 tour of Australia.
Barath’s delicious innings, makes him the only special young talent West Indians can look forward to with any sense of hope for the future.
But even given Barath’s obvious talent, evident so many moons ago, the decision by the West Indies selectors to select him instead of continuing to recycle the likes of Devon Smith, is a rare crowning achievement by the current select panel.
Yet one has to be fearful for the overall future of West Indies cricket with this particular WICB regime that has no excuses for sending an ill prepared squad to face the toughest team in the world in the most challenging of playing conditions Down Under.
For most of the current squad, their last test games were in
June yet the WICB did not have a preparatory training camp.
Now, supported by an undistinguished technical team, the squad finds itself at the mercy of repercussions resulting from the type of negligence again displayed by the WICB.
Already Ramnaresh Sarwan and Jerome Taylor are out with injuries and who knows how many more can break down at any time given the rust these players took with them to Australia.
Yet this board expected the players to be sharp and ready for a Test series by competing in an abbreviated limited overs competition.
It was the same experts who reportedly wanted to reduce the regional Under-19 competition to a limited-overs series this year with the expectation that it could properly groom young players for future careers in four and five-day games.
This is the same WICB which allowed the Australia Cricket Board to provide a mere one practice match for the three-test series.
No board worth its salt would agree to such a deplorable itinerary for its team knowing how tough it is not only to play Australia, but to play this current Aussie team, that is a vengeful as ever after losing the Ashes title to England this year.
But alas, are you convinced now that the decision-makers in the Julian Hunte-led WICB know little of the finer points required to produce winning teams.
Not too long ago the board’s new CEO, Ernest Hilaire, was quoted as saying that the deteriorating pitch at Kensington Oval was “no big thing”, after it was thrashed by the ICC specialist Andy Atkinson.
Even if the problem at the time did not require major repairs, Hilaire should know that the slow nature of that pitch and the majority of West Indies’ playing venues is a huge problem that is contributing to the production of batsmen ill equipped to play international cricket and a dearth of real fast bowlers.
Instead of spinning words to give the impression that Kensington is in good shape Hilaire should have been talking about plans to redo that pitch, along with the pitches at the Beausejour Stadium in St Lucia and the National Stadium at Providence, the three most lifeless ones in the region.
These are the type of clueless officials who run West Indies cricket and who would be better off managing ‘Litty’ teams instead.
“Spin” it seems, is the strategy being employed by career politician Hunte to cover up for the board’s inefficiencies.
Only a few nights ago we heard how staunch Hunte supporter, Joel ‘Big Bird’ Garner, in his capacity as the touring team manager in Australia, was complaining to Ian Chappell, the ex-Aussie captain that the West Indies Board was not getting any money from the ICC to run its programmes.
But Garner should be reminded that the ICC gave the WICB an opportunity to make money for itself from its hosting of the 2007 World Cup competition.
And where did all of the millions of dollars go?
Perhaps the `Big Bird’ can give the answer, because according to the West Indies Players Association, millions have been lost to breaches of contracts committed by the WICB on business partners.
So far the public knows of the Digicel/Stanford sponsorship mess-up.
The WIPA says there are at least four more such contract violations.
This is what Hunte, Garner, Hilaire and company should be made to talk about and be accountable for, instead of trying to cover up the sorry state of affairs.
