Date-stamped : 12 Apr95 - 14:39
West Indies facing test of character - John Woodcock

FOR the first time since 1975-76,   when   Clive   Lloyd`s   side
gave  up the ghost in Australia, West Indies cricketers are faced
with a crisis of confidence. Australia not  only  won the   first
Test  match of this series here on Sunday, but, in doing so, they
also showed West Indies up as being badly in need  of   cohesion.
One  of  the  strengths of modern West Indian sides has been that
players have pulled for each other; in this one, they seemed  not
to be doing so.

In Andy Roberts, they have a new manager who was much  feared  as
a   bowler   and   still  has a fairly quelling way with him.  He
knows more than enough to have seen that, at times,  Ambrose  and
Walsh were at half-cock and that far too many West Indies wickets
were thrown away. At the end of the first day, after West  Indies
had  been bowled out for 195, Roberts attributed their negligence
to a surfeit of one-day  cricket  but nobody, himself   included,
can have been convinced by that.

Mark Taylor, the Australia captain,   was   surprised   to   find
that when, early in the Australia first innings, he hooked at Am-
brose, he had finished his stroke before the  ball arrived.   Am-
brose has been kept out of the game with shoulder trouble, but in
one of the stands was a West Indian banner suggesting  that   his
shoulder  was not the matter so much as his attitude.  There were
no such half measures with the Australians; they were wholly com-
mitted and played very well for their ten-wicket victory.

Several times in recent years, one has  thought  that  West   In-
dies  were ready for the taking, but it has never quite happened.
Their fast bowlers, and the confidence which they transmit,  have
allowed  them  to  prevail.  When they have lost a Test match, as
they did against England here in Bridgetown last  year,  it   has
usually  been  after  the  series has been won. It is a very dif-
ferent matter losing a first Test match, let alone in comfortably
under  three  days;  when they are searching for an opening pair,
have an ageing, somewhat mercurial attack; and have just  brought
back a captain who has been through the torment of a breakdown.

The advantage Richie Richardson had when   he   took   over   the
West  Indian  side  from Vivian Richards in 1991 was that he is a
less daunting figure than his predecessor and  the  players  were
happier  for  it.  He  was never a perceptive tactician, any more
than Richards had been or Lloyd was, but he grew into the job and
was  well  liked.   Captaining West Indies to success through the
Nineties had been a matter simply of shuffling the  fast  bowlers
and  acquiescing  in  as much intimidation as they could get away
with.

Richardson now returns to a side that has been rather  enjoy- ing
itself  under  Courtney  Walsh, their caretaker captain, and at a
time when he is searching desperately for confidence, not only as
a   batsman   but   also  in his own worldliness. From now on, he
will need all the help he can get from his team, and Roberts will
have told them so in no uncertain terms.

The West Indian selectors are also under  pressure.  To  have in-
cluded   two   unfledged  opening  batsmen  was  indicative of an
over-confidence induced by West Indies`s easy 4-1 victory in  the
one-day  series  and the absence from the Australia side of Craig
McDermott.

The Australians  were  delighted   that   neither   Simmons   nor
Arthurton  was  chosen  for  the first Test match. They felt that
they had less to fear from Campbell and  Williams,  who, in   the
event, totalled only 17 runs between them.

There is further resentment, too,  that  Desmond  Haynes,  rather
than  going in first for West Indies last week, as he had wanted,
was making 92 for Western Province against Orange Free State   in
Bloemfontein.

In Brian Lara, of course, West Indies  still  have  the   world`s
best  batsman.  To him, almost anything is possible. With one in-
nings, he could transform the series. Mention of him brings   one
to  that  ``catch``,  the one that never was on the first day but
which, unfortunately, accounted for Lara when he had made 65.

Considering to whom it happened, when it  happened  and  that no-
body  is  in any doubt that Steve Waugh put the ball down, it has
caused remarkably little antagonism. If Australia had been  play-
ing England, it would have registered on the Richter scale. Here,
prudently, there are seen to be  more far-reaching  reasons   for
such an unexpected defeat.

Source :: The Times
<END> Contributed by Ram.Krishnan (rkrishna@garnet.acns.fsu.edu)