Still a long way to go for Windies, says Dujon

NEW DELHI, India, CMC – Outstanding former wicketkeeper Jeffrey Dujon is not reading too much into West Indies’ Test win over Bangladesh last month.

The Windies beat the Bangladeshis in the second Test in Dhaka to win the two-match series 1-0 but Dujon said the Caribbean side still had a long way to go.

“Bangladesh are ranked lower than the West Indies. There is still room for improvement for West Indies,” the Jamaican, who played 81 Tests in a 10-year career spanning from 1981 to 1991, told Indo-Asia News Service.

“We have some young players in the team, which is going through a building process. We can call it a start, but we still have a long way to go in terms of development and producing good players.”

The series win was the first for the Windies on overseas soil in eight years, following a similar 1-0 verdict over minnows Zimbabwe.

Dujon said cricket development in the Caribbean had lost its way because of the lack of vision of authorities.

“Everything went wrong from the start of the 80s. When we were successful there was no foresight in producing and developing quality cricketers to maintain the standard of West Indies cricket,” said Dujon, now a member of the television panel covering the Test series between West Indies and India.

“The standard has obviously gone down for some time now. Internally West Indies have not been in a settled situation.”

West Indies are currently playing India in the first Test of the three-match series in New Delhi.