Picking a team to take down the West Indies in their prime

Against the full-strength WI pace attack, Gavaskar averaged a horrifying 30.8 in 6 tests in the Caribbean. He only covered up for his failures during the 1983-84 home series scoring 500 runs in 6 tests, including a 236* in the final dead rubber test at Madras to push his average past 40. Compared to him, Jimmy Amarnath was a much better prospect as his aggregate of 697 runs in 6 overseas tests against the combined might of the pace battery at average of 63.36 indicates. Even if his horror show return of 1 run in 6 innings during the home series is taken into consideration, he continues to average a fairly respectable 41.06 overall. Border, apart from his miraculous 100* on the green Trinidad wicket, was deprived of 2 additional centuries when he was left stranded in the 90s trying to shield his teammates. His inclusion imho is mandatory. Gooch may've become a truly ATG only later in his career, but his liking to combat high quality pace bowling was visible from the start. Regarding Kapil Dev, he's an interesting prospect. In the 19 tests against the number one ranked WI squad during the 80s, he averaged a highly impressive 22.98 for his 72 wickets. In the 9 tests which ended in India's defeats, he took 49 wickets at average of barely 18. With the bat, he was more at ease touring the Caribbean averaging 28.75(pretty good for a number 8 batsman) including a match saving 100 on an uneven Trinidad pitch. He continued his impressive form with the ball in the islands, averaging only 23.11 for his 35 wickets. It was Kapil who almost clinched a test win for India in the opener at Kingston in 1983 with 8 wickets in the contest, despite setting the home team less than 200 to chase in the 4th innings, though India lost in a thriller by 4 wickets. Gower, for all his failings in general, was a revelation while touring, averaging almost 44 with the bat in the West Indies. Though Wasim Akram just came to the furore in 1985, he had his own share of memorable battles with the Calypso Kings, as seen during the high voltage loss for pak in 1987 where he took 7 wickets. And I'd request The Roar to kindly stop glorifying imran as an all-rounder in regards to battling the Windies, keep him confined as a fast-bowler. Here's my opinion on a World XI which could battle the West Indies in their prime during the 1980s:- 1. Graham Gooch 2. Kepler Wessels 3. David Gower 4. Allan Border(captain) 5. Mohinder Amarnath 6. Ian Smith(wicketkeeper) 7. Kapil Dev 8. Imran Khan 9. Richard Hadlee 10. Wasim Akram 11. Abdul Qadir RESERVES: Sunil Gavaskar, Ewan Chatfield, Iqbal Qasim, Ravi Shastri

Only 3 of Gavaskar's 13 tons against the west Indies were during their great years of dominance. The rest were pre-1976 before they began their 4 pronged paceman era. This was a time when their pace stocks were so low that Clive Lloyd opened the bowling on occasions. Allan Lamb's tons being complemented by lots of low scores applies equally to Gavasker in the 1980s.

Border did have some mediocre series against the West Indies, but if it is based on where players were at in 1984 then yes, Border and Allan Lamb have to be chosen.

Gooch wasn't eligible in 1984.

But three tons in a row in that very year of 1984 is pretty relevant to the hypothetical posed by this article.

Exactly! He also scored a match-winning ton in Jamaica in 1990. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyR6YsCHAlY

Reading all of this just makes my eyes roll a bit. You could write a similarly long piece about Pakistan and how they haven't quite been able to make the most of the talent they've had over the years. Ultimately a cricket nation's success is due to their culture. I'm a proud Aussie and I'll suggest the reason we have an overall superior win/loss record against every other Test nation is because of our cohesive cricket culture and approach that has stood the test of time. Our weakest period was the post WSC era of the 80s (although we did have a lull in the 50s as well). But when we came through that we were bigger and stronger than ever. It actually is no coincidence that the revolution of the sport (WSC) was Australian driven. The Windies were great before 1984. They were the dominant team from about 1977 and they were brilliant from the 50s through the 60s (Weekes, Walcott, Worrell, Hunte, Sobers, Hall, Gibbs etc). Excuses shouldn't now be made for their cricketing shortcomings on the field since. If they can't get their act together then so be it. Other nations will rise and improve. Since the 70s we've seen Sri Lanka and New Zealand both improve drastically and we've seen SA come back into the fold and incorporate players of all race and colour into their team. Over the last 20 years we've seen India grow in stature dramatically. I'd love to see the Windies strong again but I won't hold onto some romantic notion from the past. If they don't have the ability to organise a booze up in a brewery between them then why should the cricket world weep? Bangladesh and Ireland show promise. If the Windies can't get a strong team together with their natural sporting talent and rich heritage of champions behind them then thanks for the memories. They enjoyed pounding the hell out of lesser talented and organised nations in the 80s and they didn't let up. Those fellas were cut throats and played to win and humiliate. They have been taking beatings (especially from us) over the last couple of decades and, similarly, we shouldn't ease up. The only people that can save the Windies or get them up the rankings is themselves. If they can't get stronger then they need to get used to the status quo and people should stop thinking romantically about Roberts, Holding, Garner, Marshall and Croft. They hated losing, they loved smashing their opponents and even hitting and hurting them...and Richards didn't hesitate from hitting a young bowler out of the attack and potentially ruining his starting career. The Windies should get their act together or be comfortable with watching YouTube videos of past glory days. End of story I reckon.

Thanks Mitchell. What an astonishing team they were. There were some perceptions that once they had a series won, they took their foot off the pedal so to speak. I recall one tour, can't say exactly what year it was. But they'd had a romping series win over Australia. Then they played New South Wales before the final test, losing to that side who had the spin duo of Holland and Bennett. The selectors had those same spinners in place for the final test in Sydney. Australia chalked up the win thanks to the spinners, I recall celebrating the victory in the car listening to the ABC coverage. It was a rare moment against such a powerful side.

Great point Marty - where and when makes a huge difference - Border would be the first batsman picked.

Exactly JG - and if we're picking a team to take it to them, Kim Hughes is a must !

Like reading about Atlantis

Where does one begin with this? The reasons given for the decline are many, but many of them are symptoms and not the cause. We can point fingers at the youth playing other sports or something else, but the real reasons are more complex than that. For years, the english struggled with how to approach the West Indian "problem". Can you imagine that a disparate set of former colonies could dominate them as much as they did? Between 1974 and 1990, not a solitary test win including two 5-0 "blackwashes" once at home and once away. Something had to be done. They were seemingly content to lose to Australia, but not to the WI. First, it so happened that they had to find a way to shut down the WI bowlers, so to do that a new law had to be brought in to curb the "intimidation" of their short pitched deliveries. Initially, in 1991 it was one an over, then in 1994, it was loosened slightly and it became 2. The fact that the West Indians didn't bowl them more than anyone else, is beside the point and by the mid 90s there was only Ambrose and Walsh (the last two great WI fast bowlers) who were holding the WI attack together. The second and more important factor here is that the english woke up and realized they'd been training the enemy in their backyards the whole time! So, it was implemented that an english first based policy for county cricket where only two overseas players per team were allowed, and a little discouraging of counties to pick West Indians helped to dismantle the nursery that had helped West Indies cricket dominate. Shut down the nursery, shut down the production line, right? How many West Indians play county cricket now? Or play in the Sheffield Shield, or in South Africa? They used to. Where there used to be the majority of the top WI cricketers used to be able fly to england to be signed and play in the county system, most now don't. You'll still find plenty of Australians, South Africans and Indians though, but few West Indians. The third is infighting between the board and players. The board and the players have never seen eye to eye. From as far back as WSC days, even earlier, there has been fragmentation and a callousness from the board which worsened over time, and as different boards came in, the worse it became. Players like Marshall, Dujon and Greenidge, and more recently Chanderpaul were dropped, couldn't even get to bow out gracefully; Haynes was banned from representing the WI in 1995 because of a new rule by the board stating that he had to have played a certain amount of games in regional cricket to be eligible, which ended up in court (he was playing regional cricket in South Africa at the time and missed like one or two regional games). It made no difference as the WI by that time had already lost their crown as well as a great opener. Because of the heavy handedness of the board, players revolted, and when players revolt against perceived injustices they get dropped. It is why you'd find so many WI players plying their trade in the different t20 leagues chasing the $$$ as professionals, or sitting out altogether because of major differences with the board. In essence, the selectors have been only been able to put out half of a real WI team for the past 15 years because either players didn't want to get selected because they'd have to deal with the board, or were sidelined because they spoke out, or sided with others who did. At least one tour was cancelled, and another put in jeopardy, and another where a second rate substitute team had to be found because of the issues between the board and players. In the late 1990's with the rise of Lara (the last of the great WI batsmen), it meant he'd soon chase after the captaincy, and he stepped on, and over Richardson and Walsh to get it, which affected team spirit and morale, meanwhile the ostracism from county cricket was taking its toll as weaker players were coming through the regional system and since there were already inexperienced and poor performers in the team already, how could they expect to pass on that knowledge to the younger players? The few former great players who were willing to teach and coach them complained that some of team didn't want or feel the need to be told how to play as they felt as if they had "made it" walking around with their collar up, and without totally understanding the pride of what it meant to play for the West Indies. To some of them, to play against england was "just another series" whereas those who had lived under colonialism, fought against and rejected offers to go to South Africa as a rebel tourist and be an "honorary white" under the apartheid system, they knew and understood the connotations of the word "grovel" because they had a different mindset. The issues within and without exposed a weak infrastructure and system in the West Indies that was highly dysfunctional, fragile and lacked resources that had been hidden behind a winning team. Players who were friends of the captain whether they were worthy of selection or not made it into the XI. One story is told of a bowler from the early 2000's who when a new captain was chosen was in effect told that he would not darken the door of the dressing room again...until that captain was removed and guess who came back into the dressing room? Speaking of captaincy between 1996 when Richardson resigned the captaincy after the WC and now, there have been roughly 11 permanently appointed WI test captains - not stand ins through injury or illness (by comparison Australia, South Africa and NZ have had 6, and england and India have had 8) which speaks to the flux and instability in the regional directorate. There have also been at least 7 coaches since 2005, including 3 Australians (John Dyson, Bennett King and Stuart Law) and 8 men who have headed CWI (formerly WICB) since 1996. The corners that have been turned have been very deep and unfortunately, they've all been right turns. In earlier days, these WI cricketers were revered, and you could see that being imitated on all of the islands with young boys playing in the streets or on beaches playing with makeshift bats and balls pretending to be a Richards, or a Holding...now these days not so much. Cricket isn't a passion anymore for a lot of the young people on the various islands with so many other options...cable with US sports, football, athletics, even online gaming. Even if you do see them outside, it is with a different kind of ball...a football or basketball. Ultimately, the fall and decline of WI cricket doesn't lie with the withdrawal of english support, or ICC laws, but with the successive boards who lacked foresight and vision, who did not plan effectively, and who continued to war with the players. Remember with fondness the great WI players and teams of the past. It is unlikely we'll ever see the likes of any of them again.

Apols to Mr M Python “And, nought, they won’t believe you. Just try tellin the yung peeple.” “Back in my day they had 4 fast bowlers and a medium pacer.” “You faced 4 fast bowlers, tch, two of theirs, that l faced, bowled over 160kph! And we we’re lucky to last to lunch.” “Lunch, we lucky to get to morning tea! 3 of em bowled over 175kph and the slow one was never under 155kph” “4? 4 you say? We had 6, 2 at 195 kph and the slowest maintained 165kph. Heck even their spinner was 145kph” “6, we faced 8 who could bowl a mininmum of a 175kph and they had 3 wicketkeepers and a black panther at extra cover and a gibbon in the gully” “Try telling the yung ones and they won’t believe you”

Great article Mitch. The young blokes at work were very surprised when I told them how dominant the Windies were over so many years. Marshall, Garner, Holding & a young Courtney Walsh demolished us in the first 3 tests. The 2nd best bowling line-up I have ever seen. We drew the boxing day test & we almost took it as a win.

wow...what a great read. Thanks!

yep...conditions matter very much.

Very good read Mitchell! Always great conversation starters. Well done.

Nice article Mitch but got some quibbles. Gooch scored 154* of 252, 153 of 5/249, 123 of 2/165 and 116 of 8/201 against outstanding attacks as well as the usual array of lesser but significant scores. Border also scored gritty 100s and fighting scores over a period from 79/80 to 92/93 against all the best of their vast array of fast men. Surprised at Gower's inclusion. Great player, as is anyone who got a 100 vs WI but the I don't remember him as being amazing against them that often. Regarding Pollock, the WI had a knack for taking out star bats. It would have been fascinating.

I'd go for Gooch, Gavaskar and Wessels in the top order, similar to what the Aussies did in the 75 series with 3 openers. Have to have javed miandad, lamb and border in the middle order instead of Vensarkar and Gower, imran at 7, Smith or Wayne Phillip s at 8 as keeper Then hadlee, to open bowl with imran, followed by either kapiil dev, Abdul quadir, Terry alderman. Great article by the way

Jimmy Amarnath had 2 great series against WI and 2 shockers.