September 7, 2011 issue

Cricket

The Australian team that won the 1st Test against their Sri Lankan hosts featured five players, the opener Phillip Hughes, middle order batsman Usman Khawaja, as well as the bowlers Ryan Harris, Trent Copeland and Nathan Lyon, whose combined total of Tests played was 20. Almost identically, the Pakistan team that won the recently concluded one-off Test against Zimbabwe, included five players: Azhar Ali, Adnan Akmal, Sohail Khan, Junaid Khan and Aizaz Cheema whose combined Test experience totaled 21 matches.
I daresay that within the next year or two, the emergence of a new crop of young players within the ranks of the world's top teams is likely to continue. England may of course be the standout exception to that trend. Its Andrew Strauss-led squad, having emerged as the world's number one ranked Test team,following their 4-nil demolition of the previous holders India, now seems fairly settled.
How settled England is as a team may however be severely tested in another month or two during their forthcoming Winter Tour of India. It will be very interesting to see how England's four-man bowling attack of Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan and Graeme Swann performs on Indian pitches that are likely to be much less helpful than those they encountered at home this past Summer.
After their forthcoming Indian Tour this October, England's next Test engagements won't be until next April-May, when they will play hosts to Sri Lanka and the West Indies. As such they will have plenty of time to make whatever adjustments to their team composition, as dictated by the outcomes of their performances on the Sub-Continent. While England cool its heels at home, the rest of the world's top teams will be fairly busy with Australia, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and New Zealand all having fairly packed schedules over the next twelve to fifteen months.
For those readers who may be wondering what the West Indies will be up to in the foreseeable future, their reported schedule is also fairly busy. It will include tours to India and Bangladesh this October-November, hosting the Aussies next March-April, away to England in May-June and back home to entertain the Kiwis in July. Tough assignments all, but brimming with opportunities to advance their current Test ranking from its lowly number seven position.
Just how well the West Indies fare on its forthcoming Test Match assignments may very well depend upon the extent to which its administrators can put aside their petty politics long enough to ensure that their best team possible takes the field at all times. Towards this end, the ongoing dispute between the former captain Chris Gayle and the West Indies Cricket Board will hopefully be sufficiently resolved to allow Gayle's inclusion to the Squad that will tour Bangladesh and India.
Gayle's as yet unresolved dispute with the Board and the absolute lack of any viable alternative has resulted in Darren Sammy's retention of the West Indies captaincy for the tours. Every well intentioned West Indian fan will undoubtedly be hoping that his inadequacies as a Test player, let alone captain, will be undeniably revealed in the sub-continent in such a manner as to permanently terminate the lunacy of his captaincy role.
The identification and establishment of a captain, whose position as player and leader is beyond dispute, will be a prerequisite for the possibilities of any desired improvements to the West Indies Test ranking. Settled and undisputed captaincy was one of the characteristics common to the ultra successful, all conquering West Indian and Australian Test teams of the eighties, nineties and early 2000's.
Clive Lloyd's or Vivian Richard's captaincy of those West Indian teams was never questioned, neither was that of Steve Waugh and his successor Ricky Pointing for Australia. Similarly much of India's and England's recent successes have been in no small part due to the unquestioned leadership of their respective captains Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Andrew Strauss.
As outlandishly optimistic as it may sound, given the paucity of success of their recent results, I do believe that with the right leadership and coaching the West Indies do now possess the talent that can be molded into a very successful team. Any armchair selector with a half decent knowledge of the game and an eye for talent could identify a squad of the top 21 players in the region to form the nucleus of future teams. Hopefully the forthcoming Bangladesh and Indian tours will sort that process out sufficiently to allow the West Indies to enter 2012 with an unquestionable captain, at the helm of a fairly settled squad.
If left to me, my 21 member nucleus, from which Test and One Day International teams and touring squads would be picked, would be as follows: As opening bats Chris Gayle, Adrian Barath and Lendyl Simmons would be the three from which the required two would be chosen. The four middle order batsmen would be selected from Darren Bravo, the youngster Kraigg Brathwaite, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Kirk Edwards, Keiron Pollard, Marlon Samuels and Ramnaresh Sarwan.
Lendyl Simmons' potential to perform the functions of a back-up keeper allows for Carlton Baugh's selection as the sole specialist glove man in the squad. Andre Russell, Dwayne Bravo and Darren Sammy, would be my preferred all-rounders, in that order. As pacers my obvious choices would be Jerome Taylor, Fidel Edwards, Kemar Roach and Ravi Rampaul. Add to these the three spinners Davendra Bishoo, Sulieman Benn and Anthony Martin and there's a squad of 21 players from which the best Test or One Day teams can be chosen. The final X1 to be dependent of course upon the respective opponents and playing conditions.
My obvious choice for captain would be Chris Gayle but the odds of that happening may be similar to me becoming a lottery winner anytime soon. In much the same manner that South Africa chose Graeme Smith years ago, if their places in the team can become fairly settled and well established, any one of Darren Bravo, Adrian Barath or even Marlon Samuels could emerge as a suitable candidate.
Whichever way events unfold, the next twelve months on the international cricket calendar promises very interesting and exciting times. Who knows this time next year, we may even be heralding a new world number one ranked team.

Amid a debate over the use of Decision Review System following Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni questioning its accuracy, the ICC on Sunday acknowledged that "minute number of errors" in DRS have been detected with the world body monitoring it closely.
Dhoni had questioned the accuracy of DRS after Rahul Dravid was controversially given out despite television replays not showing any edge off the bat during his side's first ODI against England at Chester-le-Street on Saturday.
The ICC said it has been monitoring the accuracy of ball-tracking and all decisions whether referred or not under the DRS and it has revealed "a minute number of errors in technology and that technology is not always conclusive".
"The ICC today re-iterated that it has always, and will continue to, monitor the accuracy of ball-tracking and all decisions whether referred or not under the DRS," the ICC said in a statement.
"Following criticism of the DRS in some areas of the media, David Richardson, ICC general manager - Cricket, re-affirmed that every decision made in Test match and ODI cricket is monitored at the ICC Headquarters in Dubai," it said.
Richardson said that in the vast majority of cases an incorrect decision can be - and has been - rectified.
"The purpose of the DRS is to get as many decisions correct as possible. The statistics show that, with the full DRS in operation, the number of correct decisions rises to almost 98 per cent and that is what we must focus on," Richardson said.
"Even if it is possible only to reach 98 per cent that has to be better than the average achieved without DRS of around 93 per cent," he said.
The statistics given by the ICC showed that the accuracy of the decisions in the recently-concluded four-match Test series between England and India with the use of DRS, though without ball-tracking technology, was 96.31 per cent as against 93.35 without the system.
The recent three-match Test series between England and Sri Lanka recorded accuracy of 98.47 per cent in decisions under DRS while it was 92.35 without the system. The two-match Test series between the West Indies and Pakistan had 98.63 per cent accuracy of DRS as against 94.52 without the system.
The recently concluded five-match ODI series between Australia and Sri Lanka has been shown as having 100 per cent accuracy of decisions by using DRS as well as without the system.

Bangladesh have sacked captain Shakib Al Hasan and his deputy Tamim Iqbal following the team's dismal tour of Zimbabwe, the Bangladesh Cricket Board said on Monday.
Zimbabwe, returning to test cricket after a six-year exile for political reasons, beat Bangladesh by 130 runs in a one-off match.
The home side also won the one-day international series 3-2, Bangladesh's first limited-overs series defeat by Zimbabwe in six years.
"Shakib and Tamim and have been removed from their posts as they failed to lead the team to success in Zimbabwe," BCB spokesman Jalal Yunus told reporters after a meeting of the Board of Directors.
Shakib was appointed captain on a permanent basis in February and was due to lead the team until Bangladesh's home series against Pakistan in December.
Earlier he led the side on an interim basis in the absence of injured Mashrafe Mortaza and almost single-handedly guided Bangladesh to an unprecedented 4-0 win over New Zealand in a one-day series last year.
He came into conflict with officials when he questioned team selection before the Zimbabwe tour and received a written caution.
Bangladesh's next opponents are West Indies who they host in a Twenty20 Int'l, three one-dayers and two tests starting in October.