Wickman Mourns South African Dominance

...or rather the West Indian capitulation in a series they were one up in and looking feisty after the first test. Now they are getting spanked. When Wickman was first introduced to cricket the West Indies were the dominant force in the world game. As a lad, when cricket from abroad was rarely seen at all, snatching an hour on Saturday lunchtime when it was on Grandstand was heaven. Watching those bowlers pound in and kill people had roughly the same effect on the Wickman digestive system as a Lamb Phall would have these days... "burn, burn, burn... the ring of fiiiiiiyah, the ring of fiiiiiiiire".

They were stunningly brilliant. By surviving the Packer assualt on the World game through World Series Cricket and coming through it with a production line of evil fast bowlers like Roberts, Marshall, Holding, Garner, Croft, Ambrose, Walsh and the most exciting batsmen on the world stage in Lloyd, Richards, Richardson, Haynes, Greenidge, Gomes, Kalicharran they were invincible AND brilliant to watch - even in the field - lead by keeper Derryck Murray they were electric in an era where stopping the ball in the ring with a foot was considered the modern equivalent of a one handed miracle catch by Colly or Jonty.

Right now they are screwed. The batting is more fragile than Nasser Hussain's Poppadum fingers. Which is a nightmare because you can't bat away the excuses in the same way that you can over the decline in their bowling pipeline - which is based on the lure of basketball taking away all the tall guys. Sachin, Lara, Bradman, Ponting - they aren't big men. It was held together by BC Lara and Charderpaul (antoher couple of titches) for ages which disguised an almost total lack of other talent. Now Chanders is there alone like the Dutch fella with his finger in a dyke (this is not a reference to the pleasures of Amsterdam). At some point he will have to give it up and apart from the biff it of Chris Gayle, some spine in Marlon Samuels and the out of the tour Sarwan what is there?

Which made it all the more heartening to see them go one up in this series by playing good, aggressive test cricket in the first test. Decent 1st dig total, corridor bowling, pressure applied again and a textbook win. Then? Outbored in the second test and outclassed now. Shame, real shame.