Another opportunity spurned

How do you score runs? By not getting out.

It seems an obvious answer to a question that would probably prompt responses ranging from natural ability and mental application to the nature of the pitch and the quality of the bowling.
But in an era where every aspect of cricket is analysed to a microscopic degree, it took two of the legends of an earlier period in West Indies cricket to remind us how straightforward a game it really is.

There may not have been any play at Bourda, but Saturday in Georgetown was far from a total loss, not with two of the Three Ws holding court in an event billed as an "Evening of Nostalgia" at the Le Meridien Pegasus. The opportunity to hear the reflections and musings of Sir Everton Weekes and Sir Clyde Walcott on a night of cricket talk put on by the "Reds" Perreira Sports Foundation was one not to be missed.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, most current West Indies players had better things to do. Only Brian Lara, Marlon Samuels and newcomer Sewnarine Chattergoon saw it fit to attend. Unlike his two teammates, who departed after the first half of the proceedings, the captain stayed to the very end.

His presence, gratefully acknowledged by chairman Tony Cozier, and warmly appreciated by the attentive gathering, offered confirmation - if any was needed - that the captain stands alone among his contemporaries in having a genuine appreciation of the history of a game that has brought such joy and pride to the region, but has more recently been a source of much anguish and frustration.

When players can't even appreciate the value of listening to and learning from past masters in their own profession, should anyone still be shocked that modern Caribbean cricketers seem to be critically deficient in the pride and passion that were, until very recently, defining characteristics of regional sides?

Anyway, enough trampling over well-beaten ground. Even if those who needed the advice most chose not to be around, two points stressed by the cricketing knights are worthy of repetition.
The first, the one I referred to earlier relating to a batsman first treasuring his wicket if he wanted to get big scores, was hammered home more than once by Weekes and Walcott. As a stylish and prolific accumulator, Sir Everton's Test batting average of over 58 is a testament to that hunger for runs. Yet more poignant in stressing his attitude of eliminating risk was the fact that he only hit one six in his entire Test career.

In mulling over that surprising statistic, you could almost hear the question and answer that it would have inspired: How do you avoid getting caught? Easy, don't hit the ball in the air.
Which brings us to the second point that really stuck in my mind amid the two hours of reflection on times past and opinions on current happenings in the game.

The idea that a batsman should value his wicket, a concept once so fundamental to the art of batsmanship, now seems lost in an era when attention spans are more in tune with the 20-20 game than Test matches.

For Sir Clyde, who averaged over 56 in Tests, a remarkable effort for such a giant of a man who was also a wicketkeeper, the state of West Indian batsmanship and the quality of the overall regional game are symptoms of the times we live in.

"Life is too easy these days," he stated more than once, a comment that would have had the few younger members of the audience rolling their eyes at the prospect of another relic of the past dragging on about the good old days.

But in both cricketing terms and a general sense, Walcott was not playing down the wrong line. Long gone are the days when young batsmen, despite compiling more than a few hundreds in regional competition, were kept waiting for their chance to break into the West Indies team. Lara was probably one of the last of those, having to wait another 16 months after his debut to play his second Test.

Batsmen of recent vintage can't put a premium on their wickets because they haven't had to work as hard as those of earlier eras to make it to the top. In fact, as the Walcott stressed, it is also a reflection of different lifestyles. In an environment defined by the obsession with any number of fly-by-night material possessions, the very idea of consistently preparing to bat for the long haul is almost alien.

So what can be done? The clock can't be turned back to recapture the work ethic of the post-World War II Caribbean or the heady independence era of the 1960's, when a sense of West Indian identity through cricket was all the rage.

In fact, some will say that the two ageing batting champions are out of touch with reality and therefore unable to appreciate the demands of the modern game. Yet while they valued their wickets and the lessons of a more challenging era, they also embrace the use of technology to help umpires and the employment of full-time coaches.

So it wasn't a case of "in my day this and in my day that" from the two giants. It's just a great pity that those in greatest need of such tutelage felt it was a waste of two hours on a Saturday night in the Guyanese capital.

Fazeer Mohammed