How often have you heard that world cricket needs a strong West Indies team? Probably, if you put your mind to the commentators and those who opine on the game, you hear it all the time.
“A strong West Indies side will be good for world cricket and its level of competence,” we are told.
This resembles an urgent sales pitch where one frequently hears the management requesting its marketing department to pull up the socks.
But let’s face facts.
There, quite simply, are two possibilities.
The West Indies may improve as a team, somehow finding a way not to trip over the faulty implementation of whatever it is that their board concocts in the name of strategies to emerge unscathed. And the other logic is that the team may never recover from the deep hell some of their players- who conveniently choose franchise T20s over national duties- jointly with their administrators have dug.
It’s not that there aren’t any funds with them, even as there is a paucity of funds. It’s not that there just aren’t any cricketing facilities around or for that matter that there is no intensity or talent. After all, a full-scale Women’s World T20 is being held in the Caribbean.
There’s plenty of talent as well.
We have seen it. Glimpses of immense skill and natural brilliance are all too sparkling to ever be turned a blind eye to.
But where it comes to functioning as a sound and cohesive cricketing body endeavouring to perform and continue making giant strides, in Dave Cameron, Wavell Hinds and their henchmen, there’s a black hole of sorts that blankets everyone, including this current team causing a dullness. It’s felt by the fans. It’s written about. Yet, nothing has been ever done to take cognizance of all that’s wrong.
Those who claim to know they know why guys like Gayle and recently-retired Bravo, Sammy and Narine are missing regularly in action are gladly fooling themselves. To this day, we haven’t been told what exactly is it that the board wants, in the guise of its desire to construct a youth-oriented side.
To this day, the seniors haven’t exactly come clean with sufficient answering for their deplorable show in the abandoned India tour of 2014.
Did that behaviour on the part of a Bravo, Pollard and others suit the conduct of a World T20-winning side?
That the seniors weren’t regarded by the board has been sufficiently documented.
But should they be constantly sided with, now that every T20 poster-boy- Gayle, Bravo, Pollard, Narine, Sammy, Russell- has made enough ‘bucks’ representing multiple T20 leagues around the world? Are they still hanging out in misery and abysmal poverty as to be ducking national duties to collect useful currency for survival?
Let’s get something straight. The constantly irate bunch of seniors, some of whom like Gayle and Samuels who turned out when most needed- ICC World Cup qualifiers- who crib for a lack of decent pay have been constantly representing the T20 format for over half a decade.
Gayle played the Canadian franchise T20s earlier this year, upon which he’d play in the Afghanistan Premier League. He was in the IPL earlier this year. Russell, like Gayle played the APL and also the Global Canadian T20s. When not captaining, Carlos Brathwaite runs his houshold through several T20 leagues. Bravo has already emerged a superstar, like Gayle in the format, the duo, who also happen to play their home-based Caribbean Premier League as well as Australian Big Bash League.
So what’s the excuse for not appearing for their West Indies?
Does CPL not pay these modern age shot-makers of the West Indies?
Amid this dullness, perhaps subtly marked by the fans’ own failure to understand that priorities in the Caribbean have changed and that nation-love perhaps is a defunct and unsound logic today, there’s great hope in Shai Hope.
The Barbadian, who’s just turned 25, isn’t just a living testimony of his own surname.
Shai is an assurance of things turning hopefully bright for West Indies. Hope, in itself, can be a phrase that can be hollow. It’s an empty promise when it’s not backed by a performance.
To forge an honest tribute to Shai Hope- a man with 1300 runs in both Tests and ODIs from 45 and 38 innings, respectively- one would have to say, along with youngsters like Roston Chase, his close friend, he seems to be the only positive out there.
In times marked by excesses of T20, one is compelled to offer a tribute to Shai Hope by suggesting, it seems, here’s a batsman who is stoked by the prospect of a good contest in five-day cricket; a man who doesn’t whine when challenged by rigours of five-dayers.
A quarter of a year back, Shai Hope had a dismal series against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in Tests. He failed to pick the length of the ball and just couldn’t get his feet moving against spinners. The sad part was, he was batting on home turfs.
Yet, when he arrived in India and exhibited some commanding straight drives on Umesh Yadav in Tests, it seemed the old Hope, who liked a good fight, was back. Still, there was trouble.
He couldn’t go beyond those beautiful 20s that he sort of became accustomed to strike, failing to convert breezy starts into big scores.
Where was the Shai Hope, who struck a hundred in his maiden Tri-series ODI appearance- Zimbabwe 2016- disappear, one asked?
A defiant knock
He was, only 23, back then. He was only 24 when as a lonesome soldier, he took on Mohd. Amir, Abbas, and Yasir Shah to score arguably his most defiant Test knock in the Caribbean; that 90 at Barbados. The team would go on to skittle Pakistan to earn a famous win.
Finally, fans’ patient wait in searching for the old Hope was answered when the wicketkeeping batsman answered in the form of a fighting hundred at Vizag. He’d nearly take fans to the edge of their seats at Pune in his 95, just when Bumrah found a way to disturb his timber.
In these twin knocks, Shai Hope proved he’s worth his salt. Those rasp cuts, square drives and that majestic elan he exhibited in his pull strokes, he had as much power as the ability to time the ball.
Yet, what we see is Shai Hope faltering in T20s. Perhaps, he’s becoming a batsman who needs a good shake-up before the fighter in him can rise.
But what the fans ideally want is the Shai Hope he demonstrated to Stokes, Anderson, Broad’s England in 2017 at Headingly. The series gone, Hope, coming at the back of a decent Pakistan series came out of nowhere and broke a 127-year old record in plundering two devastating hundreds, earning West Indies a win in England.
Surely, the man embracing Wisden’s 2017 cover even didn’t see this coming- did he?
What lies ahead of Hope is a challenge exasperatingly arduous. He’s going to have to play an anchor to a side that despite the flair and the quintessential Caribbean punch, often conducts itself like a headless chicken. Feats like Hope finding himself run out needlessly and his failure to clobber spinners he can’t read well aren’t going to help.
But the good thing is, the Bajan is only 25.
There is a world ahead of him. There are Roston Chase, Jason Holder and the impressive Shane Dowrich for a company. Hope can be the stroke-maker to Chase’s defender. On other occasions, the two can forge gladiatorish fightbacks of the kinds that Lara and Chanderpaul stitched to save their fledgeling Windies.
What’s changed is that only the name of the outfit. Lara played for West Indies. Hope represents Windies, a new alter ego, favouring T20-generation and the age of instant gratification.
Yet, the beautiful thing is, he’s got the will to conduct himself like a Field Marshal. He seems aware of the legacy he’s representing. Moreover, he looks committed to contributing. So, can he make it count?
It’s up to Shai Hope.