Forget about relatively plain sailing in Zimbabwe. Just staying afloat in South Africa will be a monumental task, says Fazeer Mohammed
Fazeer Mohammed10-Dec-2007
“It is one thing to be guiding the side to victory against an attack comprising the likes of Chigumbura, Brent, Utseya and Price. However to replicate that effort against Ntini, Pollock, Steyn and Nel will be deserving of region-wide rejoicing.” © Getty Images
At least there are no expectations to live up to.Having seen off the challenge of Zimbabwe after the stumbling in the opening match, no-one should be under any illusions as to the huge step-up in the standard of competition awaiting the West Indies on their arrival in South Africa today.Yesterday’s washout of the fifth and final one-day international in Bulawayo may have deprived the tourists of the chance to extend their ODI winning streak to four matches (the last time they enjoyed such a run of success was against India at home last year). But even the most emphatic of victories would surely not have deluded them as to the enormity of the challenge over the next eight weeks in a country that has been their most barren frontier.In four separate visits to the country at the very southern tip of the African continent, beginning with a triangular tournament in early 1993, the Caribbean cricketers have managed just a solitary victory over their hosts on each trip.On that first journey, Brian Lara’s unbeaten hundred saw Richie Richardson’s team to a nine-wicket victory after two earlier losses to Kepler Wessels’ side and confirmed a place in the final, where they cruised past Pakistan to continue their winning form from the triumphant tour of Australia.Doesn’t it seem like only yesterday that we were hailing the return of our conquering heroes who had rallied from losing the second match, winning the fourth (by one run) and fifth (by an innings) Tests to retain the Frank Worrell Trophy, having earlier defeated the Aussies to claim the tri-nation limited-over title? The subsequent success in South Africa was merely the icing on the cake, but it has proved to be the first and, so far, last time that the West Indies, as a team, lifted any sort of silverware there. Forget about relatively plain sailing in Zimbabwe. Just staying afloat in South Africa will be a monumental task. On the calamitous 1998/99 campaign, Lara’s side lost all five Tests and six of seven ODIs, the exception being the second fixture in East London where hundreds from Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Carl Hooper saw the visitors to what was then a series-levelling victory. If nothing else, the fact that the tour opens on Friday with a Twenty20 match against a Makhaya Ntini Invitational XI at the same Buffalo Park ground should give the former captain some happy memories.Ironically, the next journey to South Africa opened with a notable triumph, Lara unfurling another majestic hundred as the West Indies scrambled a three-run victory to stun the hosts in the first match of the 2003 World Cup in Cape Town. It all went downhill thereafter for the two-time former champions with Hooper, much to his chagrin, replaced as captain by Lara after the team failed to advance to the Super Six stage of the tournament.Just ten months later, the West Indies were back in town for a full tour , and while it was not as catastrophic and emotionally deflating as five years earlier, the tourists still only had one victory to show after losing the four-Test series 3-0 and then succumbing 3-1 in the limited-over contest.That one day of joy was in the penultimate match of the tour as Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Lara led a run-feast in glorious afternoon sunshine at Centurion that saw the much-maligned tourists overhauling a target of 298 with five overs to spare, displaying an imperiousness that belied the overall results of yet another failed campaign in that part of the world.And just to rub salt and pepper into wide open wounds, the memories of losing to both the mighty South Africans (despite Gayle’s historic hundred) and the lightly-regarded Bangladeshis in Johannesburg on the way to being dumped out of the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup less than three months ago are still painfully fresh.So let’s not get carried away, either by sheer ignorance of those unavoidable realities or the supreme yet baseless optimism that this West Indian side is capable of doing what none of the earlier versions managed to achieve with much more experience and talent.Dwayne Bravo seems to be responding well to the responsibilities of leadership in Gayle’s enforced absence through injury, but he surely doesn’t need reminding that the geographical proximity of Zimbabwe to South Africa bears no relation to the world of difference between the two national teams.It is one thing to be guiding the side to victory against an attack comprising the likes of Chigumbura, Brent, Utseya and Price. However to replicate that effort against Ntini, Pollock, Steyn and Nel will be deserving of region-wide rejoicing.It’s not that it can’t be done. Why, just over a year ago another pulverising Gayle hundred led the West Indies to a rampaging victory over Graeme Smith’s side in the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy in India. But, as has become commonplace with almost everything associated with our cricket in more than a decade of struggle, maintaining a consistently high level of performance has proved frustratingly elusive.So now there’s a new captain (who is injured), a new deputy (who must expect to be thrown in at the deep end), a new coach (who was amazingly allowed to skip the Zimbabwean leg of the tour), a returning manager (Clive Lloyd was in that role in ’98/99) and just two survivors from the last time we defeated South Africa in their own backyard (Gayle and Chanderpaul).Forget about relatively plain sailing in Zimbabwe. Just staying afloat in South Africa will be a monumental task.