ARE WINDIES PLAYERS LACKING MENTAL SKILLS?

Someone suggested to me a while back that the reason why the West Indies currently do relatively well at T20 cricket is that by comparison to One Day Internationals and Test cricket, it requires little thought. T20 cricket, the person suggested, is a 120-ball slog that requires little mental engagement. And while admitting that the format has helped enhance scoring rates in the longer versions, T20, he said, is more about the physical than mental.

When he first said it I was a bit offended because he was clearly suggesting that the current crop of West Indies players are incapable of thinking on their feet and totally dependent on their physical skills. In other words the team was like the Incredible Hulk, they are able to smash you but they will never be able to out-think you.

Having been made aware of that thinking, it forced me to pay closer attention to the regional team when it played teams like Australia, England, South Africa and what I saw suggests that my friend could be right. Of course, it would be foolhardy to suggest that I can arrive at a definitive conclusion on just observation alone but the perception usually speaks more loudly than the truth and the perception is that my friend is right.

With a few exceptions, West Indies bowlers and batsmen alike, do not seem capable of making adjustments in the heat of battle. We have watched time and time again, bowlers bowling deliveries that amounts to stoning the opponents’ bats. And as their newly minted ODI captain Jason Holder said after the team’s latest embarrassing display against South Africa in the ODI in East London on Wednesday, the batsmen keep getting out the same way time and time again.

There are batsmen in the team that are guaranteed to stand firmly planted inside the crease and slash at a ball outside their off stumps, invariably nicking one behind or to the slips. Or, walking too far across their stumps and being dismissed leg before or pushing the front pad too far down the pitch and then trying play across the line in front of the pad, missing and being plumb leg before. We have seen it time and time again. The bowlers don’t even try to bat. This, in an age when we see the Australian, Indian and South African tails wag vigorously more often than not.

The only batsman in the team that averages over 50 in Test cricket is Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who over the years has made many adjustments that have worked wonderfully for him. He may look awkward at the crease but he is among the very few who seem capable of knowing what to do against certain types of bowling, and how to get runs by being patient. It is perhaps why he is less than 200 runs away from overtaking Brian Lara as the most prolific West Indian batsman ever.

The Guyanese “Tiger” is very much like Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakara, Australia’s Michael Clarke, and the awesome pair of AB deVilliers and Hashim Amla from South Africa, who have made slight alterations to their respective games and are among the top three batsmen in the world.

I am not going to malign the players for wanting to earn as much money as they can before their careers are over. That is what professional sportsmen and women do. However, there is more to being a professional than just earning money. There has to come a point when pride shows its head in the mix. Courage too as well as application.

Yes, the players might hate the board and blame the board for their collective misfortune but at the end of the day, they are the ones who are out there on the pitch not just representing their region but themselves. The ‘elite’ West Indies players have been afforded the opportunity to work with some of the best coaches across the world in the respective T20 leagues, they also play on good and bad pitches. They play on fast pitches in Australia and South Africa and on pitches of varying types in the IPL  in India where a number of them them earning a good living. So what’s their excuse for the constant failure when it comes to playing for the West Indies?

Maybe my friend was right. Maybe it requires too much thought for many members of the team to play for more than three hours at a time. If that is the case it certainly would explain why ODIs and Test cricket are proving to be too much to handle as one form requires them to be engaged mentally three times as long on a daily basis, while the other format is two and a half times as long.

The perception might be light years from the truth but for now the perception is certainly holding sway.