Host Toast?

Original Post Date: 12th March 2007

Well, this blog would be no different from the show put up by theWest Indies against India in the warm up game if I hurry to write WI off completely, but the questions remain and we will take a deeper look into the situation. At least the WI have a "rush of blood" excuse for their "swing and oops" performance, I don't.

Looking at the recent performance of this team, the inevitable question that comes to mind is: How much can this team score if Chris Gayle does not contribute to the count?
Yes, names like Lara, Chandrapaul and Sarwan do pop up, but the glaring inconsistency and incapability of the batting line up cannot be hidden.

Wicket keeper batsman Denesh Ramdin should promptly change his title to exclude the latter element (and the former title is not something that he can hang on to with a lot of pride either, given the lazy-ass activities WI cricket fans have gotten used to seeing). Statistics aside, I have not seen contribute in any significant way with the bat in eons. The only reason he is in the team is the fact that the replacement is apparently worse. (How can that be possible?). Take a look at the list of wicketkeepers for the top 8 teams (in no particular order) and see if he is not the unequivocally rightful claimant of the bottom spot, especially in the batting capability hierarchy

Australia – Adam Gilchrist
India – Dhoni
Pakistan – Kamran Akmal
South Africa – Boucher
England – Geraint Jones
Sri Lanka – Sangakkara
New Zealand - McCullum
West Indies – Denesh Ramdin

I may be killing a dead horse here, but this is something I feel really strongly about and hence this topic deserved a verbose belaboring.

It is fair to say that the top contenders have at least 7 players who could be referred to as pure batsmen and one of those seven has routinely helped the team out, routinely being the key word. Apart from Gayle, Chandrapaul, Lara and Sarwan, I refuse to accept anyone else as a fair contender for one of the seven spots. Samuels is the next in line, close but not there yet. Bravo does not come close to that list, and his title of an all rounder is a stretch. He is probably much less of an all rounder than Pathan, but Pathan is a whole another topic, for another day. I would greatly appreciate if Bravo is not mentioned in the Flintoff, Razzaq, and Kallis category. And while we are excluding names from this list, let's throw Pathan out as well.... sorry, I keep digressing into Pathan!! What's wrong with me?

That leaves us with the bowling (and of course the huge black hole in the batting line up). Powell, Bradshaw, Bravo are up there with the best (actually, it should be the "next" category, as Pollock, Bond, Ntini, McGrath, Muralaitharan, and dare I say Munaf (come on guys, he is up there... I will throw some statistics at the naysayer community in the next few days), are the real "best" category). Gayle is also worth mentioning in the bowling category. He has this uncanny knack of breaking established partnerships, and I can get statistics to prove that as well. Samuels is a better part-timer than likes of Shewag, Yuvraj, Shoaib Malik, some of the Sri Lankan part timers and Ganguly. I will not add Tendulkar, Jayasuriya, Aravinda DeSilva (I know he has retired, but I like him) to that list.

If it was a pure bowling show, I would have given the West Indian team as good a chance as anyone else, but there is this nagging thing called batting that needs to be taken care of. WI has fallen well short of the target in terms of proving their batting capability. Their fielding, while not the best in the world, is surely not the bad.

"Where does that leave us?" you may ask. Well my dear, it leaves us exactly where we started. There is little chance that this world cup is where the "Host Curse" is going to be broken. It is an uphill battle for them to reach the final four, but we have seen one too many Cinderella stories unfold in March. Their experience of the wickets may very well play a role, acting as one of the missing spokes in the batting wheel. The four big wigs are each capable of winning the game by themselves on any given day. Four good wins can probably earn you a spot in the semis, but I wouldn't bet on the hosts just yet.

They do have a better chance than Pakistan. Australia, SA, Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand are clearly better bets than WI. England, as someone was mentioning to me earlier today, could be the shocking surprise coming into this world cup. I personally do no think England is better than WI. Wither way, the host, for this world cup, is toast.