The sad decline of West Indian Test cricket: ‘We seem to have given up’

[Gollum]

Roach and Holder were truly world class, would have walked into most teams. 

[vvvslaxman]

2 hours ago, Gollum said:

Roach and Holder were truly world class, would have walked into most teams. 

Shamar is also top class. But their main problem is batting. The gulf is massive. 

[BacktoCricaddict]

7 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

 

It seems that teams need batting talent to look decent.

 

Kemar Roach with 287 wickets at avg of 27 in 16 years. He would have been 2nd best pacer ever for India and would have played 120+ tests.

 

Shamar Joseph 51 wickets at avg of 21.

 

Seales 89 wickets at avg of 22.

 

They are world class players.

 

 

If there is no incentive - emotional, nationalistic or monetary - to excel in red ball, why struggle? Any money that is to be made as a Caribbean batter is in T20. Why practice tough, patient batting?  Interestingly, when I think about it, even in their glory days, their test batters were power hitters, which set them apart from the rest of the world and destroyed bowlers. If they want to promote red-ball cricket, especially batting, it will take a huge infusion of $$$. Where will that come from? 

 

The bigger surprise to me is that - other than Alzarri Joseph and Jason Holder - their excellent fast bowlers are not seen in IPL. They had a few mediocre guys who shined every now and then. But I don't remember Roach, Shamar J or Seales. Real fast bowlers can impact T20 with quick strikes, no?

 

Edited October 5, 2025 by BacktoCricaddict

[sage]

20 hours ago, AKane said:

We are approaching the 50th anniversary of the infamous 1976 Kingston test highlighted by Holding, Daniel and that Clive Lloyd.

 

They were not just bowling bouncers, they were bowling beamers and the rotten umpires stood by.

 

What is happening now is payback for that. Enjoy being in the gutter of cricket.... again enjoy the payback for that 1976 Kingston test.

 

PS - Despite all the tall tales of "independence", it was the practice in English county cricket that helped the WI. Arrogantly you showed off to the English in 70's and 80's. When they cut you off from county cricket, you found your level... your current level.

How were they cut out of county?

[putrevus]

9 hours ago, singhvivek141 said:

It also matters that likes of Worrell, Llyod were good players in themselves. Likes of Lara, Chanderpaul, Sarwan etc were known and renowned players.

WI cricket has been producing zero stars post Gayle. Likes of Pollard, Dre Rus etc are just T20 hacks.
Sad part is their pace bowling demise..post Ambrose-Walsh duo they haven't produced even a single world class pacer. Roach tried hard but was no better than Umesh Yadav. Shamar Joseph has potential but how much he will play will always remain a question.

 

I agree , Worrell and Lloyd were good players but not great ones.They were great captains who brought different players from different countries to play under one flag.Sammy while not a great player himself did unite the team to fight.

 

Something is going wrong somewhere, how can anyone say the players who have played in last decade for WI are better than guy like Pooran.

 

Pooran , Holder  and Hetmyer are few players on top of my head who are better the ones who are playing here.

 

As far as pacers go, how many world class pacers have we produced.One in Bumrah. 

 

Seales, Shamar and Alzari when fit would form one of the best fast bowling attacks in the world .

 

It is the batting where they need lot of talent.

 

 

 

 

[putrevus]

13 hours ago, AKane said:

Well I mean what to say...I heard about it live but ...

 

https://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/when-clive-lloyd-ordered-india-s-bloodbath-at-jamaica-25636/

 

Read about the "Bouncer and beamer barrage" ......

 

Their trash has caught up with them - they are a lousy talentless team and they need to deal with that fact. Hey Lloyd and Holding - take your team to play the associates......

 

Those who like them and their trash can cope harder.....

Bowling one odd beamer does not make it wrong IMO. Brett Lee bowled lot of beamers in his career.Nobody called Brett Lee a thug.

 

Facing fast bowling is supposed to be hard and bouncers are part of any fast bowler's armory. If you cannot face heat go home and sit. 

 

Indians plain and simple wimped out and Bedi was one of main reasons for it.Bedi was an idealist who would be happy getting hit for sixes and clapping batsman.But he had nerve to complaining about Indian players who lost of the field when he was the manager.

 

There was no restriction on bowling bouncers then.

 

Lillee and Thomson dished out bouncer barrage and hitting players of all the teams.WI were at receiving end too.They are still glorified till date.Teams were terrified to face Thomson for three or 4 years.

 

Even now if any team has those kind of fast bowlers they would be dishing out chin music all day and everyday.WI had 4 express fast bowling playing and another 4 waiting in the wings.Why would any captain not opt for chin music.

 

Irrespective of their current status, those great WI teams will always be held in high regard .

 

 

Edited October 5, 2025 by putrevus

[AKane]

37 minutes ago, putrevus said:

Bowling one odd beamer does not make it wrong IMO. Brett Lee bowled lot of beamers in his career.Nobody called Brett Lee a thug.

Er.... here is Gavaskar whom you quoted earlier. one beamer my @ss - I was listening live.

 

During the miniscule highlights provided during the Doordarshan Samachar  those days, cricket writer Raju Bharatan had caught a glimpse of a vicious beamer  rearing for the head of Gavaskar.  Years later he wrote in Sportstar, “I asked Sunil once he was back in India, ‘That head-hunting beamer we saw you barely manage to evade at Sabina Park … how did it feel to measure up to it from Holding?’

“‘Which beamer?’ Sunil slyly sought to know… ‘There were so many of them bowled at us. Both — Holding and Daniel — bowled them regularly. Their technique was simple — mix a beamer with two-three bouncers in an over. Then, having shaken the batsman’s confidence, produce a fast straight yorker to go through his defence. I did ask wicket-keeper Deryck Murray why they were still after me when they had virtually won that Sabina Park decider with three of our key men injured. Deryck said he had spoken to Clive about it, but they had simply been asked to turn their eyes away if they did not want to look!”

 

You like them - Fine. You are entitled to your opinions but not your own facts.

 

To that smug rat commentator Cozier and this Clive Lloyd and Holding - If you can't play, don't play - take your worthless team back to your Mama's. Don't litter the cricket landscape with your trash teams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[singhvivek141]

1 hour ago, putrevus said:

I agree , Worrell and Lloyd were good players but not great ones.They were great captains who brought different players from different countries to play under one flag.Sammy while not a great player himself did unite the team to fight.

 

Something is going wrong somewhere, how can anyone say the players who have played in last decade for WI are better than guy like Pooran.

 

Pooran , Holder  and Hetmyer are few players on top of my head who are better the ones who are playing here.

 

As far as pacers go, how many world class pacers have we produced.One in Bumrah. 

 

Seales, Shamar and Alzari when fit would form one of the best fast bowling attacks in the world .

 

It is the batting where they need lot of talent.

Nicky P is talented. But he hardly played games for WI, always missing the tournaments due to commitments to the league cricket. In comparison look at Chris Gayle, that dude has been one of the best Test batters for WI, despite his T20 exploits. Likes of Sarwan and even Marlon Samuels have served WI cricket more.

 

Another example which I can think of is Carlos Braithwaite, except for those 3 sixes, he never fulfilled its potential. Lendl Simmons was another high potential player. Holder is hardworking but he too is a shade below DJ Bravo in terms of genuine skillset. 

 

WI cricket is on the same crossroad where Zimbabwean cricket was in 2004. Zimbabwe later perished and died down as a serious cricketing nation, I dont see any reason for WI to not stoop to that level. There is zero interest.

[AKane]

16 minutes ago, singhvivek141 said:

WI cricket is on the same crossroad where Zimbabwean cricket was in 2004. Zimbabwe later perished and died down as a serious cricketing nation, I dont see any reason for WI to not stoop to that level. There is zero interest.

Well we should say something similar to what Lloyd and that smug Cozier said - If you can't play, don't play.

 

They say there is no interest - but realistically after the doors of county cricket closed, they have no ability/talent in their setup.

[AKane]

1 hour ago, putrevus said:

Facing fast bowling is supposed to be hard and bouncers are part of any fast bowler's armory.

I pointed out before that the problem was beamers.

 

1 hour ago, putrevus said:

If you cannot face heat go home and sit. 

Tell that to this worthless WI (for a long time now)....Enough of this crying about their history.

 

1 hour ago, putrevus said:

Lillee and Thomson dished out bouncer barrage and hitting players of all the teams

Lillee and Thommo did with bouncers - but not beamers and not intentional beamers whole match long.

 

You don't want to accept the fact that the team you idolized employed beamers in the Kingston match - Fine. But that does not change the fact.

 

PS - Even with beamers the Indian team fought harder than this worthless trash WI team. Digest that.

[Gollum]

I have utmost respect for great sides and players of the past.

 

But today's cricket is so much fairer. Can't get away with beamers or intimidatory tactics, even crowds can't go rogue without repercussions from security personnel. Neutral umpiring with hi-tech support (even no balls are checked by 3rd umpire now, in 1998 Barbados test the onfield umpires stopped caring about Ambrose and co. overstepping), clampdown on racism, fixing, chucking, tampering, illegal bat technology/modiifications. Just a cleaner sport now where we can trust the results and players' worth more accurately. Sure not perfect (still feel DRS needs tweaks) but much, much better than the past. Even the better coverage has played its part in providing a fair contest, with a million cameras and sensors all around the ground. 

Edited October 5, 2025 by Gollum

[tapandrun]

9 hours ago, BacktoCricaddict said:

If there is no incentive - emotional, nationalistic or monetary - to excel in red ball, why struggle? Any money that is to be made as a Caribbean batter is in T20. Why practice tough, patient batting?  Interestingly, when I think about it, even in their glory days, their test batters were power hitters, which set them apart from the rest of the world and destroyed bowlers. If they want to promote red-ball cricket, especially batting, it will take a huge infusion of $$$. Where will that come from? 

 

The bigger surprise to me is that - other than Alzarri Joseph and Jason Holder - their excellent fast bowlers are not seen in IPL. They had a few mediocre guys who shined every now and then. But I don't remember Roach, Shamar J or Seales. Real fast bowlers can impact T20 with quick strikes, no?

 

 

Roach is not that fast to be in t20s, he would not even make it to Wi t20 team. Seales just emerged but only played 1 t20i for Wi, hard to pick some1 who is not picked for their own team and do not think he has played any other t20 league apart from cpl.

 

PPl here are making it seem like the downfall is steep, no its nt its been consistent, nothing to do with t20s only. It started in 90s with odis becoming a favoured format and 3 asn teams started playing alot amongst themselves on other hand Eng and Aus played themselves for their cricketing rivalry.

 

Wi was left out and then player also had issues with the board and it goes past a long way back ,not 100% but lara himself was not playing with various issues with the board.

 

T20 and IPl gave some stability to the wi cricket and board ,but now their gen#3 of wi batters are no where  near the competition, compare to gen1and2 who were leaps and bounce ahead of the competition. The dip in the power game is massive. Think vs npl they were unable to hit 4/6s in srjh a smallish ground.

 

 

Edited October 5, 2025 by tapandrun

[AKane]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

But today's cricket is so much fairer. Can't get away with beamers or intimidatory tactics, even crowds can't go rogue without repercussions from security personnel. Neutral umpiring with hi-tech support (even no balls are checked by 3rd umpire now, in 1998 Barbados test the onfield umpires stopped caring about Ambrose and co. overstepping), clampdown on racism, fixing, chucking, tampering, illegal bat technology/modiifications. J

There were some people on an Aussie board complaining about some Indian ump in 1990s who when officiating, India never lost a test......

 

Rich coming from them.

 

English umps like Dickie Bird were gold standard good. Indian umps like Madhav Gothoskar were very very good and fair. India has always been holier than thou and self righteous to the extreme in these things.

 

Pak umps were the worst and WI not too far behind. Even Len Hutton I think complained about the difficulty getting LBWs in Aus. NZ was just like Aus.

 

I guess neutral umps came around when the cricketing nations saw India resorting to what they had been doing all along. If the dumb@ss Indians have figured it out then then gig is up and let us go to neutral umps is what they thought and did.

[tapandrun]

1 minute ago, AKane said:

There were some people on an Aussie board complaining about some Indian ump in 1990s who when officiating, India never lost a test......

 

Rich coming from them.

 

English umps like Dickie Bird were gold standard good. Indian umps like Madhav Gothoskar were very very good and fair. India has always been holier than thou and self righteous to the extreme in these things.

 

Pak umps were the worst and WI not too far behind. Even Len Hutton I think complained about the difficulty getting LBWs in Aus. NZ was just like Aus.

 

I guess neutral umps came around when the cricketing nations saw India resorting to what they had been doing all along. If the dumb@ss Indians have figured it out then then gig is up and let us go to neutral umps is what they thought and did.

 

before tv or even after tv. umpires would always favour home sides, it was common. no one was fair 

[AKane]

37 minutes ago, tapandrun said:

 

before tv or even after tv. umpires would always favour home sides, it was common. no one was fair 

ok - for example Gavaskar.....

 

Dismissed LBW 10 times in 108 innings at home and 7 times in 107 innings abroad.

 

Can't be more fair than that by the umpires in India.

[vvvslaxman]

Listening to some ot the views from West Indians it is clear ther eis no coach that can get them to next level. I think India has so many batting coaches in big cities. Windies should hire a few of them  

[nevada]

18 hours ago, sage said:

How were they cut out of county?

Overseas player limit was reduced to 2. Previously it was 4 I think. 

[bsriharsha]

Try facing those bouncers and beamers without helmets. 

 

Windies did it against India more than the other teams because they knew that the Indians didn't have the fast bowlers to pay them back with the same coin. 

 

You'll find that they didn't do the short ball barrage that much against australia. 

 

The sad part is that they didn't need to against any teams that they faced , they were undoubtedly the best test team during their era of dominance. 

[vvvslaxman]

Quality Indo-Guyanese , indo-trini players has gone down.  Rajasthani heritage Robin singh,  Few other hindu players Shiv Chanders, Ramnesh sarwan , There were a few tamil speaking guyanese like Alvin Kallicharan, Rohan Kanhai contributing to Windies cricket immensely.

[tapandrun]

The root cause is 3 different formats, 3 different format means alot of $$ is needed to keep the players in rotation and most of the boards does not have that kind of $$.

 

Boards and players are being burdened with 3 formats, if some1 does not play or have game for longer format he is type casted as some villain.

 

It happens to Ind players too look how ppl go after pandaya even when they know his body can not cope-up with test cricket. 

More recently ppl went after bhumrah who is coming after 2-3 back injury. 

 

3 formats are hard on players and boards yes some player and boards have clearly inclined towards the shorter format and leagues but that is where $$ is.

 

Plus having an ICC event in every 1.5 year does not help any1 with smaller pool of players to build and organize a team. A middling potential player does not get enough time to develop which they previously use to. Your team goes to ICC event does nt do well they are the 1st ones to get removed, no scope of development.

 

And when a specific format wc comes team tried to use other format to test out their players and combination. Say if t20 wc is near and a team has couple of odi series planned , that team will use to check some of the t20 player and Odi players have to sit out or players in developmental state have to sit out.