Different team familiar result

There is a saying that winning is a habit, and so is losing as it is becoming a norm with the once dominant West Indies cricket team.

On Friday, the new look Caribbean side crashed out of the Blue Mountain Achilleion Tri-nation Series due to a five run loss to host Zimbabwe via the Duckworth/Lewis Method. It was their second defeat of the series and the end to what was determined by most cricket pundits, “a surprised performance” by the Regional side.

At the start of the series the West Indies surprised many with an impressive 65 run win over a Sri Lankan unit also undergoing transition. In that encounter the guys in maroon, for most of the match, applied the basics to get to a positive result.

Subsequent to that match the West Indies found ways to tie and lose matches from positions where they were strongly in control and should have won. A situation West Indies fans are quite familiar with since the swing of the century. Even with the presence of Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle in the same team, they lost from strong positions.

Prior to the series the inexperienced Caribbean side were not among the favourites to reach the final, but with the quality start they had a lot was expected of them thereafter. In the very next match (the third of the series) West Indies required 258 to win from 50 overs and at one stage were 28 runs away from victory with six wickets remaining and 18 deliveries to be bowled. To everyone’s amusement Zimbabwe managed to tie that match. A rare case of a batting catastrophe from such a strong position, especially with a further break down of just four runs to win from the final over with five wickets intact. Captain Jason Holder blamed the lack of experience for the result.

An unimaginable thriller followed the tied encounter, but this time West Indies found a way to lose by one run to Sri Lanka in a high-scoring encounter. Those who witnessed that match would know how difficult it is to analyse that result, particularly after a spectacular maiden century from Evin Lewis when the West Indies were on course for a successful 300-run chase for the first time ever.

Then the knockout punch came as the regional team was five runs off the Duckworth/Lewis par score when rain interrupted and arguably played into the host’s favour.

Unfortunately the skipper, Jason Holder, was at the crease on all three occasions but he is not to be blamed solely for any of the results since he displayed courageous performances with bat and ball in all of West Indies matches.

What should be questioned is the reason for negative result from a different team. Although it may be too soon to judge this new unit, their execution to the latter part of games is familiar and should be examined immediately before the catastrophe of losing matches from winning positions develop.

Clearly it has to do with their psychological approach and if it is limited to that then there must be improvement in that area.

Nevertheless the young unit performed beyond expectation throughout the series, especially in the batting department. With one match remaining in the series (the final between Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka) West Indies batsmen Shai Hope (101) and Lewis (148) so far have the only centuries of the series while they were bowled out once and scored over two hundreds thrice in a rare showing of consistency by the West Indies.

Meanwhile, in the bowling department the pacers led by Holder contained batsmen and made constant inroads while the spinners performed satisfactorily.

Overall the series must be critically analysed if this new look team is to bring unfamiliar results. That is, positive outcomes.