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Stabroek News

FROM THE BOUNDARY - Cool it, captain Sarwan
published: Friday | August 17, 2007


Tony Becca

When I was a young boy, my father and my mother used to tell me that what I could not say before a man while looking into his eyes I should not say behind his back, and I have never forgotten that.

I do not know whether Ramnaresh Sarwan's father and mother ever told him that, but based on his broadside of former coach, Bennett King, if they did, he certainly seems to have forgotten their advice.

According to Sarwan, King was one of the worst coaches he ever had - he was abusive to the players; he was not fair; he was very aggressive; he threatened the players; and if these allegations are true, it is bad, very bad.

Why wait so long?

The question, however, is this, Why wait until the man is back home in Australia to talk about it.

With the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) giving King so much power thathe could have decided who played and who did not, was it that the players were afraid of him - so afraid that apart from whispering to their friends that he was no good as a coach, many of them, with the exception of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, the captain whom he totally ignored, kept saying that he was a nice person?

Or was it something else? Apart from the fact that he was dropped during the Test series in Pakistan, was it that the man was simply doing his job and the players did not like how he went about it and resented him because he was a hard task master?

I never did support the decision to hire King as the West Indies coach, and never did for the simple reason that I found it embarrassing that the West Indies - the West Indies that had been playing cricket some 75 years at the time; the West Indies that had some produced so many great players; the West Indies that produced probably the greatest team of all-time; and which was the best in the world for a long, long time -had to go overseas for a cricket coach.

Like the Antiguan who went to a Test match at the Recreation Ground early one morning, saw the West Indies team warming up, saw the players, some of them without shirts, doing their exercises while on their backs, saw two white Australians standing over them, and left the ground vowing never to return until the Australians were gone, I never did like to see the Australians running the show and attempting to teach the cream of the West Indies how to bat, how to bowl, how to field, how to think, and how to act.

According to the Antiguan, the man who before then had never missed a day of Test cricket or one-day cricket in Antigua, what he saw on that Friday morning brought back sad memories of days long gone.

Weak in batting


Former West Indies coach, Bennett King (left), and Ramnaresh Sarwan - File

In spite of all that, however, and even remembering Marlon Samuels' accusation during the recent tour of England that he was being discriminated against, it is possible, as those close to West Indies cricket would know, that King's attitude was a response to the attitude of the players.

As great as the team was once upon a time, the present team is weak in batting, bowling, and fielding and the only way for the players to improve is for them to practise and train as often as they can, for as long as they can, and anyone close to the this team, anyone close to West Indies cricket these days knows the attitude of most of the players when it comes to practice and training.

Training as a joke

The West Indies players, most of them, are satisfied with a few minutes here and there; and they do not practise and train as the professionals they claim to be.

Even at club cricket, if anyone attempts to get them doing more so that they can perform, when anyone is asked to run a few more laps or field a few more balls either because of punishment or because he needs it more than the others, they rebel, complain and end up reporting the coach and the trainer to management, while referring to some of them as slave drivers; to others, as not liking them.

As far as being aggressive is concerned, sometimes it must be difficult not to be when dealing with some of these West Indies cricketers, and especially those who take practice and training sessions as a joke, a time to relax.

Sarwan may be right about King, just as others, based on what is coming out of the recent tour of England, may be right about David Moore. There are two questions which should be asked, however.

The first one is this: What purpose does it serve the captain to talk about it now that King is gone?

The second one is this: Was King's attitude a response to the players' attitude towards improving their batting, their bowling and their fielding so that they could compete?

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