Tony Becca

SOMETHING IS wrong with the art of batting in Jamaica and in the wider West Indies - either that or our batsmen have forgotten that their job is to score runs.

Going through the statistics for my column last Friday, it was confirmed beyond a doubt that if batting is making runs, then Jamaica have had a lot of impostors in recent times - batsmen whose batting average would make bowlers proud if those figures represented their bowling averages.

The question, however, is this: can it really be that Jamaica's batsmen, most of them, cannot bat - that they do not know how to build an innings, or is it that they are satisfied with mediocrity?

After watching so many of them bat for so many years - some of them from they started to play the game, and even after seeing some of them reel off a few lovely strokes, it is not difficult to believe that they cannot bat - not when one remembers that batting, most times and especially so at the highest level and next to the highest level, calls for more than lovely, exciting strokes.

Batting, most times, calls for good defensive play and based on what I have seen, too many of our batsmen, too many of those who have gone as far as to represent Jamaica and the West Indies, cannot defend their wickets.

Easier to attack

The legendary George Headley, followed by the great Rohan Kanhai, once told me it is easier to attack than to defend, that while exciting strokeplay is good, at the highest levels, against quality bowling, it is the quality of a batsman's defence that guarantees his success and the longer I have lived and the more I have seen, the more I agree with them - 100 per cent at that.

Batting, scoring a century, or two, or three, is more than fancy strokes. It is also and moreso about good defensive play, the ability to concentrate, shot selection, and respect for the game and for the opponent - and particularly so, the bowler.

Although there are some instances, a very few, however, in which failure is linked to the inability to perform under pressure - what some people call 'nerves', the failure of Jamaica's batsmen, and of so many of the West Indies batsmen, is due to a combination of faulty technique, the inability to concentrate and thus to select properly and to build an innings, the lack of pride in achievement and the lack of respect for the game and the opposition.

The question is this: how are we going to improve our batsmen and change their thinking - the thinking which so often leads to a few extravagant shots early in the innings, following by a careless, reckless one?

One way is to get some good coaches - coaches who really know what batting is about and whose vocabulary is not limited to 'play straight'. Another way is to appoint selectors who will be true to the game - selectors who are not blinkered and who can only see who are around them. Another way is that, but for the odd player, for that player with extra special talent, for the selectors, whoever they may be, to select only those who score runs, and still another way is for the selectors to drop those who, in all honesty, they believed were good but who fail, time and time again, and especially so those who refuse to train and practise, to train and practise in an effort to perform.

Selection process

It is high time that the selectors stop selecting, time after time, batsmen who looked good as youngsters and who, but for one good score, but for one century, but for a lovely drive or two through extra-cover or through mid-on, have never performed.

Although the reality of the situation is such that if the selectors start to act in that way they may soon run out of players from which to select, there is a possibility that if more emphasis is placed on performance than on potential, if a player is dropped after he has failed time and time again, things may change, as such an approach may force enough of them to train and practise, to train and practise in an effort to perform.

Jamaica's cricket also needs a man, or rather a few men like the late Leighton Duncan of football fame. Jamaica's cricket needs a man with vision, a man who dreams, a man who believes that he can turn a talent that he sees under a tree into a master performer, a man who will walk miles to find a talent and/or to see a talent in action, a man who really knows what is talent, a man who will devote his time to the full development of that talent, a man who cares about the young man who possesses talent.

Right now, men like those are missing in cricket. Ruddy Williams, present chairman of the national selection committee, former manager of Melbourne CC, is one of the few, the very few, around