Bryan Davis, cricket coach of the Trinidad and Tobago President's Cup team, was playing his cards close to his chest yesterday.
But in summing up another disappointing showing by the senior team, he could not escape talking about attitudes gone awry and leadership-to a degree-that's not working.
``You don't play professional cricket by chance,'' Davis told the Express. ``Professionalism is not being paid to play a game; it is how you approach a game. We lack professionalism in our approach, both the cricketers and in the whole organisation of the game itself.''
There were sharp words coming from the former national player on the just-concluded season in which the national team again failed in their bid to take the regional first-class title which they last won in 1985. And there will be many more in the report he has been commissioned to submit to the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board.
In analysing the season, Davis noted that ``there was no deterioration, there was no improvement; it was just a matter of winning the first and last matches outright. And in between, it was just crumbly!'' But it was those mis-steps in mid-season, according to Davis, that highlighted the local team's problems-especially the loss of first innings points in Jamaica over the Carnival weekend.
``I feel that is where our resolve fell down a bit,'' Davis said. In that game, T&T played with virtually ten men because of a back injury to Rajindra Dhanraj and a forgotten passport that forced middle-order batsman Lincoln Roberts to miss the flight.
``If you are playing with 10 men, you have to fight more,'' the coach added, ``but some people seemed preoccupied with the Carnival weekend.'' So was commitment a cause for concern this season?
``Definitely,'' Davis concurred. ``How could you have a very powerful commitment when you go down to Guyana and it's only when you get down there that the captain says he's not playing?''
After presenting a doctor's certificate stating that he was suffering from fatigue and exhaustion, national skipper Brian Lara sat out that game which T&T eventually lost by 22 runs.
Davis continued: ``So at a moment's notice, Phil Simmons has to take over. Now we are down to 12 men and we even had a Guyanese fielding substitute for us one of the days. What kind of team spirit will you develop out of that?''
The coach was also concerned about the signals sent to the team's younger players this season.
``You have young chaps on the team, (Daren) Ganga, Mukesh Persad, and Roberts, they will feel inspired by being on the same team with Lara, the world's best batsman, the West Indies captain and so on. So when he suddenly drops out of the team, everybody has to readjust....In cricket, the captain is the most important element.''
Asked further if he felt the team as a whole suffered from a lack of leadership, the coach replied this way.
``It was a problem because Lara was not always available and they had to change up the captaincy too much at a moment's notice.''
Focussing more closely on the actual performances, Davis noted that ``Dinanath Ramnarine pleased, Richard Smith almost doubled what he did before in any particular year and we had young Ganga who also came on later in the season and made a hundred.''
But the coach also lamented other inconsistent efforts, many from the team's senior players.
``If you bring in more youths there, they'll (the team) collapse,'' Davis said, quickly discounting the need for new blood.
``But the seniors are really not doing their job up there. How are you going to win two games outright and lose two outright, something has to be wrong!'' But the coach insisted that the answers lie not with preparation or lack of technique or with how all the players, cricketers and administrators play the game, but how they think it.
``Attitudes have to change,'' Davis insisted. ``And that can't change over one or two years. You have to have somebody in charge, not only of the preparation of the team but somebody who has a rapport with the senior players, who have to toe the line.''
Perhaps when the TTCB have read and studied Davis's report, national cricket will be clear on just where to draw the line.