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AN innings in a cricket game needs a foundation. In order to have a good start, the batsman must have an idea of how the pitch will play, thus he would understand the manner in which he would approach his innings.
A batsman should realise that, at the start of his innings, his eyes need to focus on the ball and it’s something that is essential to the building of an innings. He is most vulnerable at this time, hence he has to be particularly careful.
He has to determine length, so that as soon as possible after the ball is delivered by the bowler, the batsman can ascertain where the ball would hit the pitch. It’s much easier to work out these factors after facing six or eight deliveries. The shorter the game, the less time one has to settle in.
Rohan Kanhai, that great West Indian batsman, once said to me, the sooner a batsman can judge where the ball would be hitting the pitch after it is delivered by the bowler, the better position he’ll be in to play that delivery.
Therefore, although it needs coordination to be an accomplished batsman, it also requires keen eyesight, nimble footwork, tremendous concentration and the determination to do well. The reason for these ideals is to defy bowlers and play an innings of substance in order to win the match, for that’s the idea behind being there in the first place. These attributes are attained so that one could score runs and gain an advantage over one’s opponent.
Too many batsmen over the years, mainly because of the type of individualistic sport a cricket game depicts, prefer to score a hundred, although the game is lost, rather than be out for a duck, but their side has won the game. That type of selfishness pervades the game for that player can strut around after the match, proud of himself, while the loss of the game doesn’t matter that much, only to the point of : “Why didn’t you perform like me?”
The batting averages never tell the story of how many matches were brought to victory by the scoring of hundreds or how many were saved because of an excellent “back-to-the-wall” innings by a batsman.
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I can identify a couple off the top-of-my-head like the Deryck Murray/Andy Roberts partnership for the final wicket in that desperate clash against Pakistan to qualify in the first World Cup in 1975 or the Ken Mackay/Lindsay Kline, also last wicket stand against the West Indies in the fourth Test in the 1960/61 WI tour of Australia, batting for an hour and forty minutes to save the Test.
Back to the present. I read an excerpt of a statement given by Romario Shepherd at the conclusion of the second T20 game of the present five-match series against New Zealand, which was a fair comment from the all-rounder, for which I give him lots of credit.
He said, and I quote:
“On this ground, it was a good wicket; it was a better wicket than the first game, and it showed that. We know what we’re capable of in the back end, and it showed exactly what we’re capable of. We wanted a better start, but all in all the game goes how it went, and hopefully in future we can actually plan the innings a bit better, set up the game a bit better so that we can finish.”
He continued: “We all know how good the wickets are in New Zealand, and there are small boundaries and stuff like that, so you have to actually be on the ball, each and every ball you bowl and each and every ball you bat, because 200 is not enough anymore in T20 cricket these days.”
Yet, they came to the third game tied one-all and lost by nine runs. NZ lead two to one. It revealed just how poor the batting is, having to depend far too much on the lower order for a substantive total. One of the main reasons is what I explained earlier about laying a foundation.
The principal rationale behind this failure of WI batsmen in all formats of cricket that they participate in is the lack of two-inning cricket or first-class cricket being played in the WI.
That is the type of cricket competition that develops batsmen of class in every format. We need proper tournaments from club level to territorial. The financial responsibility is CWI’s.
 
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