BANGLADESH completed the demolition job over the West Indies cricket team in the three-match ODI series on Saturday, sweeping the hosts. WI lost all three games comprehensively. Their best effort was in the final game which they lost by four wickets.
The first two games were a disaster. WI were made to look like novices. Thankfully, being victorious in the preceding Test series by winning both Tests, plus, crushing them in the T20's two-nil, one no result, helped soothe the wounds suffered afterwards. But still, following that fine earlier performance, it did come as quite a shocker.
THE PITCHES
The first issue that has to be dealt with is the state of pitches that were presented for the three 50-over International games.
The pitches for all three games would have been unacceptable for a club game let alone an international. It was embarrassing to insult the visitors by offering such an abominable surface on which to engage in a fair contest to produce a true winner. This is not to take any credit away from the Bangladeshis as they adjusted to the conditions better than their hosts; being accustomed to playing on slow-turning wickets at home. Although, on their pitches, the bounce is even, while the turn is less.
The wickets in Guyana were the worst I have witnessed for an international fixture in living memory. Cricket West Indies ought to have an investigation into what went wrong and call out the Guyana Cricket Board to provide the reasons for presenting such appalling pitches which were shameful and humiliating.
Apart from spinners achieving a 45-degree angle of turn, the bounce was so variable that a few deliveries never left the ground on hitting the surface.
Winning the toss and fielding first had a powerful advantage as the moisture content was at a high level, plus, there were no cracks in the surface for excess water to evaporate. Apparently, there was rain the previous week that continued regularly until the days before the games, hence, groundsmen had to leave the covers on, trapping the moisture inside. Most of it disappeared after the first team batted, through rolling and exposure.
THE INTERVIEWS
Roddy Estwick is the Assistant Coach of WI and he does most of the talking.
He says, 'The key thing is not to allow the confidence to drain out of the group. We've got to find a way to lift people, we've got to find a way to have open discussions and come up with solutions that will move us forward.'
Let's look at this for a moment. When he said that we've got to find a way to lift people, who is he talking about - who are we? Isn't that the cadre of coaches, including himself, that is supposed to lift people? It's your job, Estwick, to come up with solutions. As a matter of fact, as an assistant coach, you ought to already have the solutions or you should not be there.
He continues until this gem comes up, 'We've got to find a way to counteract these spinners, to play this spin a lot better.
They've been causing us a l
