First up, a candid confession.
When the itinerary of the Windies tour of India was being drafted, let’s face it, most had already made up their minds regarding the outcome of the series.
For the BCCI, it was about witnessing a weaker administrative contemporary, one considered fragile, unstable, and subjected to vile accusations sending ‘lambs to their slaughter’ to Virat Kohli-land.
For Indian fans, this was in no way going to be a series of West Indian domination. It was to be a series where Kohli and men would’ve done the needful, customary execution of a vastly underwhelming side, perhaps more so because of the absence of experience.
That the West Indies didn’t manage to take the opening Test into its fourth day proves just why the team is so heavily criticized and so often subjected to being the ‘butt of everyone’s jokes.’
How a team became a joke?
For their fans, that have seen better days, there cannot be a more painful sight than seeing the current unit capitulate. For those who’ve given up hopes of seeing any resolution to the discord between their seniors- busy playing T20s as the youngsters endure- with a board that’s leaving so much to the imagination, can it get any worse?
Yet what does one see when he strolls past the scorecard of the Second Test, currently being played at Hyderabad?
That the West Indies will be batting on Day 2, with 3 wickets still in the stock seems as if Christmas has come in early.
Chase shows how to fight
How else can you put it for a side that in the opening Test, Rajkot, wasn’t able to play beyond the 98th over- in totality- has already batted for 95 overs?
And if the random analogy can be persisted with, then for a side that often resembles a desperate lot of kids looking for Christmas presents then there can there have been a better Santa than Roston Chase?
On Day 2 as Roston Chase walks out to bat with Bishoo at the other end, he would be concerned not only for the 2 runs he needs to score but would be looking to bat for as long as he possibly can.
Had he been a selfish prick; an insular breed of young batting talent that only likes the game for the hype and for the instant rewards that cricket is known to deliver, he may not have put a high price on his wicket.
How Test cricket ought to be played?
That Roston Chase hung around for 174 balls on his own, and therefore, soaked up nearly a third of his team’s pressure speaks volumes of his talent. It at the same time also projects a polarising picture of the current West Indies cricket team. This is a team that one mustn’t ignore, so often forgets to do the basic expected from a side regardless of quality, balance, strengths or weakness.
One may feel the art of putting bat to ball patiently, taking each session at a time, abstaining from good balls and applying oneself only on the bad balls as boring.
But unfortunately, regardless of us prevailing in an era of T20 cricket where showbiz and instant gratification fill up our cravings from the sport, one’s weaknesses are exposed in Test Match Cricket. It’s a bit like the scenario where an exclusive member’s club doesn’t accommodate admission to a few who walk in wanting to grab a beer wearing shorts and slippers and not boots with lace-ups.
That the West Indies Cricket Board has admitted into Test Cricket- a different arena- a bunch of inexperienced and impatient semi-finished cricketers is a subject of discussion that can be endlessly scrutinized and hardly agreed on, especially by those who’ve grown up watching T20s.
But that this select few who have the privileges of contributing to the sport by enduring in the toughest format, holding talent if not perseverance, holding skill if not application, may want to learn a thing or two from Roston Chase.
What’s special about Roston Chase?
Chase only played one airborne stroke, over deep mid-wicket when he lifted Kuldeep to a mouth-watering six, something most batsmen would refrain from attempting given the wrist-spinners guile and turn.
That Chase- who’s yet to strike his possible fourth hundred with his team still seeming precarious given it’s India they are up against- hung around playing grounded strokes is the first basic lesson in Test cricket that talented boys like Hetmyer and Ambris do not seem driven to learn.
The sad part isn’t that they cannot bat. The sad part is that they neither seem driven nor in the receiving end of an advice about putting a price on their wicket, the way Chase did.
It’s both laudable and surprising in the same breath that the same wicket on which vice-captain Brathwaite- the most experienced of the lot- failed to get going, where Powell, the highest scorer from Rajkot offered his wicket as a free birthday return present, Roston Chase enjoyed grinding the Indian bowlers, none of whom were challenged even remotely by Shai Hope- despite a gorgeous 36- and Hetmyer- another repulsive dismissal.
Often the context for the West Indies concerns not so much about whether they can play to win. We’ve seen Hetmyer’s brilliant ton against Bangladesh recently. We’ve seen Hope against England and sung enough praises to please the Bajan for years together.
We’ve seen this highly inexperienced side, actually winning against England at Barbados, first up in 2015, when there were no Hope and Chase but Darren Bravo and we’ve also seen this very side defer Pakistan nearly for a series win they eventually grabbed despite being bulldozed to the ground at Barbados.
Instead, the thing about this West Indies is about a self-cultivated slackness that leads to a no-show; about not growing a spine under pressure. To quote Bruce Lee, losing isn’t as hurtful as is the lack of fight displayed in the end.
What’s lacking in the Windies?
We saw captain Holder strike a fifty in his maiden assignment. He wasn’t even aware of how the pitch played on. He proved, as did Chase comprehensively, that applying oneself to fight and slog it out is still very much acceptable and the norm of Test cricket.
Their past greats faded away but not before putting together a heck of a fight. Lara, to his last year of Test cricket, scored at an average over 40, his final score of 49 against Pakistan coming in the same series where he struck that 216. Did he relent?
Did Chanderpaul relent under pressure? Maybe, that’s why they are so highly cited. Maybe that’s why when a Darren Bravo, due to playing T20s apparently, sees this currently faltering West Indies team from a distance, he cannot be blamed for getting nostalgic about that epic 116 constructed under immense pressure, under the night skies of a sweltering UAE against Amir and Yasir Shah, in 2016.
And maybe that’s what the Windies- what seems a funny sentiment vis-a-vis the collective solidarity and purposefulness the term West Indies offers- is missing out on the fight! Yet, one’s glad to know that some, like Roston Chase, are trying.