Lara and the myopic society

It was not a case of local hero (or even a Robin Hood) coming to the rescue of the poor but aiming a handy bazooka or two at Pat Rossouw and saying `` no money ... no tour''.

We had Brian Lara's group at Heathrow, squabbling over payment issues, the rest of the team in Johannesburg wondering ``what the hell is going on'' and a media and public becoming, daily irritated and disenchanted, with the embarrassment of the West Indies Cricket Board, held to ransom for money they did not have. Then off flew Clive Lloyd and Co as if they were summoned ...

At which point the local (South African) radio yobbos whose knowledge of the game stems from backyard knockabouts as a kid, which is about as intellectual as the ``inside backpage'' of the (local) Sunday Times and just as tasteless, were pontificating on a complex issue of which the knew little or nothing.

While this was private radio the government, or SABC programming, spread itself across a dimension which was more than tasteless. There was the boring Wednesday night TV show ``Sportnite'' offering unintelligible views (well, what can you expect from rugby types) and (in between his Saturday soccer beat) we had an equally boring Martin Lock splashing his point with the sort of professionalism which Ray Illingworth became well known. We must also mention that other SABC disaster, ``Classic Sport'' which has, after 12 months, failed to display one cricket programme. But, then, what can we expect from fossils whose only memory is of soccer and rugby, the odd boxing bout, tennis and little else. What cricket there has been is of the limited-overs variety, but that is about the attention of their mind span anyway.

In fact, you get the impression most radio/TV presenters neither know nothing of what they are doing or how to get across an opinion unless they can sort out the split infinitives been spoken by the forked tongue of some official sports body. And that means as long as it sounds right and is part of the Lulu Xingwana theory of team selection policy.

Then we get the tourists from the West Indies who are lovable, fun people. They are here for the game and the excitement of the Test series. Wounded as they are after the Kingsmead defeat, Harry Jones from Trinidad and Sally Memphis, from Jamaica, are in South Africa for the first time and feel most offended by a cartoon in some Cape Town news sheet which suggests that the trouble with the Windies side is there are not enough ``whites'' in the team. How crass and stupid; how insulting to the visitors that they are dragged into a local issue. But what can you expect? As with the radio and TV ``know it all, been there and done that smart Alec types'' ignorance breeds much misunderstanding,and upsets the visitors. Explain that the cartoon is shoving its elbow at South African white opinion is equally disturbing to the egalitarian-minded visitors untainted by the sort of racial disharmony existing in some warped sections of South African society.

To Harry and Sally it was offensive: even when it was pointed out that it was aimed at South African whites.

``It is racial and unfeeling'' was their point of view. Even the so-called ``smart talk of'' Joe Black and Ray White was brushed aside.

But then, what can you expect from a society still battling to discover an identity? There are any number of fools as well as newspaper cartoonists who are as insensitive as are those who write seriously for the same egalitarian rag.

It was like asking Lara, more subdued and honest in thought than you normally discover, what has gone wrong with the West Indies tour of South Africa. Sure there a few frank replies as well as bit of soul searching as the visitors face the first 5-0 thrashing in their 70 years of test history.

It is a new situation and one which Lara does not like at all, yet he admits to being positive as the Windies go into the last test of a series from which they will emerge with more questions and few answers about who will still be around when the test se rise against Australia starts in five weeks time.

``We have to be positive and we have to play it that way, too,'' he grinned, saying he was quite happy to put his feet up at watch the golf at Houghton on television than walk around the course.

As for the make up of the side it was his wish that those who are still here would be fit enough to be considered although there were doubt abut Curtly Ambrose and Clayton Lambert. If that it is a long-range prediction things may change overnight, or when they have a look at the pitch.

Always with a bit of pace and some bounce, Lara would prefer to have a goof look at it this morning although manager Clive Lloyd looked at it long and hard and prodded it with thumb and forefinger without offering any comment. Peter Pollock, convener of the South African selectors, also did a bit of prodding and felt it was still ``a bit soft''.

``Perhaps it we bowl first and get them (South Africa) for a low score we may stand a chance of winning this one,'' Lara said. ``We have to keep our mind off what has gone before in this series and concentrate on this match. It would be nice if we can turn it around.''

Yet mulling over the 4-0 deficit, which he admitted was a heavy load, Lara that felt had the Windies batted with more confidence up front it would have been a far more competitive series than it has been.

``It is still in the hands of our batsmen and if we can get a good score on the board we have the bowlers to bowl South Africa out,'' he confided. ``What we need to do is bat for a day and a half - four or five sessions,'' he added. Lara was confident that his wonky knee, which has gradually grown worse during the tour, would last through the final match. He agreed, however, that the injury, a hangover from the English county season, had not helped him during the series; indicating he had not been at his best.

What also did not help the Windies cause was to lose such motivating forces as Jimmy Adams and Dinanath Ramnarine who went home with injuries before the test series started. Adams had the unfortunate accident with a plastic ``carving knife'' on the flight from England and Ramnarine damaged a shoulder.

Niggling injuries to Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose before the series started also meant the touring team's selectors had not been able to call on a side which had been fully fit. It had been an added handicap. Yet the way South Africa had played and prepared for the series they deserved to be in a better position they the West Indies.

``I wouldn't say they deserve to be four-nil up because I hate being four-nil down, so hopefully we can turn things around,'' he commented. ``Whichever series they go into after this one, they should continue to show their commanding form. They have played better than we have and deserve credit for that.''