Dear Editor,
We have just experienced our version of the ‘Ashes.’ We never knew we were Amazonians until we were about to leave these shores for South Africa all aglow with undeserved hype. Indeed so unconvinced were we of the fact that we hid our new identity from others on the playing fields of South Africa. Our cricket uniforms spelt merely, and justly, Guyana.
That we were ‘Conquerors’ was certainly an upgrading from being ‘champions’ or simply ‘winners.’ Regardless, none of these attributes were displayed on the playing fields of South Africa. We showed little or no mettle. Our wooden performance was literally cindered. We returned with ‘ashened’ faces.
The question to search for is not about how we lost, but why we were mesmerised by those who should have known better into believing that our meagre resources were ever a challenge to more experienced, better organised teams, whose leadership had planned carefully how to outwit the competition.
The evidence is yet to show that we quite comprehended the size of the task we were undertaking, the intensity of strategy that would be needed, particularly given the inexperience we lamely admit of, in the aftermath.
If any answer is to be elucidated it is from the fundamental fact that, with few exceptions, T20 cricket does not produce truly good cricketers. It is noteworthy that the one modicum of success identifiable in our team lay with one tried and proven Test cricketer.
T20 cricket is not designed to provide opportunity for average and sub-average beginners to improve. What may appear to be potential talent cannot thrive on bowling four overs a match. Nor does it cater for young batsmen to do anything but slog. The bowler may tend to benefit more from the batsmen’s slogging, so that the outcome does not necessarily prove the former’s intrinsic ability.
In the rush to acclaim what little success is achieved, commentators overstate the value of ‘dot balls’ on the one hand, and the number of runs scored off fewer balls, on the other. An innings of 30 is described as impressive, and one of 50 plus is considered outstanding.
It is quantity, not quality that, in the final analysis, is preferred and applauded. Yet in the same breadth West Indian teams of floundering quality over the past decade are unable to produce the required quantity. Guyana’s is a reflection of this chronic condition.
To a substantial degree the media commentators, other ‘stakespinners’ and the commercial sponsors, whose products are identified with so many underachievers, must recognise their complicity in raising patent mediocrity to a level which not only embarrasses the expectation of the very consumers of their products, but more profoundly the vaunted self-belief of the players.
Hence the Foo’s of this sporting world are fooled. How unfair!
Yours faithfully,
E B John
