Tony Becca
THE WEST Indies tour to New Zealand is over and, once again, it was a disappointment - so disappointing that the visitors went into the third and final Test match two down and facing their ninth whitewash in nine years.
With rain destroying the final Test and limiting it to two shortened days, however, the West Indies, despite losing the second Test by 10 wickets, could have drawn the series, should have drawn the series, and with a little luck, could have won the series.
Although they were underdogs from the start, the West Indies should have won the first Test comfortably, and had they won it, one never knows what might have happened after that. They may well have been so confident that instead of losing the second Test when they simply rolled over and died, they could have won it.
CHASING A VICTORY
After matching New Zealand in every department of the game in the first Test, after finding themselves in a position from which to dominate the game on a number of occasions, the West Indies, finally, chasing a victory target of 291, were 148 without loss before they lost all 10 wickets for 115 runs, the last seven for 52, and dived to defeat by 27 runs.
To many a West Indian, however, and more so to cricket fans around the world, the West Indies were never in a position to win the match. To them, the West Indies, especially when they are batting, are never in a winning position regardless of how many runs they are chasing - regardless of how many runs they need for victory and how many wickets they have in hand.
To them, based on the number of times they have collapsed in recent times, the West Indies are never in a winning position until they have won.
It is still disappointing, however, that against an attack headed by only two top-class bowlers in pacer Shane Bond and left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori, the West Indies, with Chris Gayle and Daren Ganga batting and going well, with Ramnaresh Sarwan, Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith and Denesh Ramdin to come, did not win the match from that position.
DISAPPOINTMENT
The failure to win that Test match was the disappointment of the tour and although so many of the batsmen, like others around the world, have technical weaknesses, that, basically, was not the reason for the defeat - certainly not following Runako Morton's perfor-mance in the second and third matches.
As a batsman, Morton's technique is poor. He does not look the part and he certainly seems vulnerable to the swinging ball.
What Morton lacks in technique, however, he makes up for in common sense. He obviously is a man who loves to bat and to score runs, because of that he cherishes his wicket. Although his approach this time was different from that during the tour of Sri Lanka when, probably because of the frustration in trying to deal with the swinging deliveries from one like Chaminda Vaas, he went at almost every delivery and paid the price, he defends delivery after delivery while waiting for the loose ones.
The West Indies failed to win the Test match that could have changed the outcome of the series against New Zealand and, apart from the failure of Lara who had not played the game for some time before that and was, therefore, sadly out of practice and out of form, but also probably because they believe they are better than they really are, because their batsmen, most of them, do not cherish their wickets.
