The Electronic Telegraph carries daily news and opinion from the UK and around the world.

West Indies are badly equipped to level series in spin contest

Christopher Martin-Jenkins

28 November 1996


IT WOULD take a supreme effort by the West Indian fast bowlers to turn the tables on Australia in the second Test which starts in Sydney tomorrow. Not only is the game being played on the one Test pitch in this country which invariably helps spin bowlers, but it may do so even more than normal this year, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins.

An unusually cold November has permitted only a thin and uneven coverage of grass and a concert by Michael Jackson further interrupted the groundsman's preparations.

Throughout the Eighties only the driest and sandiest surfaces would balance any match in which the West Indies were playing. The need to bowl 90 overs in the day, flat pitches like the one at Brisbane and the modus operandi, which lesser sides than Australia have learnt against their one-dimensional attack, have all contributed to the West Indian decline.

The essential reasons are that their current crop of bowlers is not quite so outstanding and that they have unearthed no wristspinner of quality to compensate.

Australia are expected to field two wrist-spinners, as they did against India in Delhi recently, and against England at Adelaide early in 1995. Both games ended in Australian defeat, which will not in itself put the selectors off a decision in favour of two slow bowlers.

Nor is the fact that the common denominator was Peter McIntyre (partnered by Shane Warne at Adelaide and the left-arm wrist-spinner Brad Hogg at Delhi) likely to dissuade the selection committee now chaired by a leg-spinner, Trevor Hohns or the coach and captain pairing of Geoff Marsh and Mark Taylor - from giving the stocky South Australian leg-spinner another opportunity.

McIntyre is now 30 and he is no Shane Warne. He took two for 87 in the match against England and three for 103 from 37.4 overs in Delhi, his only other Test match.

The hot tip in advance of selection was the uncapped New South Wales wrist-spinner, David Freedman, who had taken eight wickets in an innings against the West Indies on their previous tour of Australia, a year ago. McIntyre, however, had a 10-wicket haul in a Sheffield Shield match at Sydney last season and the vote went his way.

If he plays, McIntyre's performance will no doubt decide whether or not he comes to England this year. The alternative would be to make greater use of Michael Bevan's left-arm wristspin.

Bevan's run-scoring in Test cricket has surely only just begun. He protested perhaps a little too much at the press conference after the first Test on Tuesday that he has no problem against short-pitched bowling. Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose would beg to differ.

Walsh pitched a ball in exactly the right spot in Bevan's one-ball first innings, producing an instant dismissal reminiscent of the one induced by Darren Gough two years previously, and Ambrose was rewarded in the second innings for persisting with the leg-stump bouncer when Bevan had twice hooked him for four.

The need for a more regular bowler who bats, however, counted in favour of Greg Blewett, Middlesex-bound next summer if he does not tour with Australia. His halo first slipped and then fell after his confident and accomplished hundreds in his first two Tests against England early in 1995.

Now 25, Blewett played a full series in the Caribbean, scoring 132 runs at 22, but was dropped after Mushtaq Ahmed made him look foolish last season. He is in good company there.

The West Indians have many fewer options than their confident opponents. Kenny Benjamin is an uncertain starter because of pain in his left knee, but the alternatives, the barrel-shaped strongman Patterson Thompson and the giant Nixon McClean, 23, are both such novices that the coach, Malcolm Marshall, who last played for Natal only a year ago, must be tempted to make a comeback.

The West Indies have only twice beaten Australia at Sydney in 12 attempts, but they fought back after losing the first Test here in the last series and sufficient of their batsmen are in form for an upset to be quite possible.

That said, Australia have Shane Warne and they will probably win again.


Source: The Electronic Telegraph
Editorial comments can be sent to The Electronic Telegraph at et@telegraph.co.uk
Contributed by CricInfo Management
Date-stamped : 25 Feb1998 - 15:16