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Up to Gayle to lift Windies from stormy times

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The man who lives and breathes cricket tells us why the West Indies are in a mess and why Chris Gayle is under presure to save them

As punters, we all have skeletons in our betting cupboard, wagers we regret, fondly cherished opinions we are forced to change in the face of financial reality. Well I also have a confession to make. For some time now, I have been secretly overestimating the West Indies in one-day competitions.

Worse still, I have been indulging this folly by putting money on them. Yes we all know that they are an embarrassment in the Test arena, but I had been clinging to the idea that in the shorter formats there might still be some spark, some remnant of the heritage of Richards and Roberts. But limp performances in the World Cup and the World Twenty20 Championships have shaken my faith and even before their surrender to Zimbabwe on Friday, I had accepted the inevitable, that in all formats of the game, the West Indians decline is permanent.

Indeed, so low have they sunk that their defeat in Harare only just qualifies as a shock, particularly when you consider the recent improvements that Zimbabwe had made. A once modest but plucky team capable of punching above their weight, they had been sucked into the maelstrom of Mugabe's tyranny and then become a watchword for negativity under the pessimistic guidance of Kevin Curran. But with the leadership of new coach Robin Brown, they are starting to express themselves and even toppled the Aussies in the Twenty20 World Championships. They play with enthusiasm and belief, two qualities the West Indians often forget to pack.

For the Windies, this extended safari is a fresh start, or rather a new line drawn in the shifting sands of failure. There is a new captain (Chris Gayle) coach (John Dyson) and manager (Clive Lloyd). Everything else remains the same. In Harare, they bowled with reckless line, displayed buttery fingers in the field and batted lethargically.

For their part, the West Indies Cricket Board, having arranged a tour with no warm-up games, allowed their new coach to stay in Australia for the duration and due to a mix-up over excess baggage, caused the team to miss a connecting flight. Another page to add to the bulging file of ineptitude that constitutes West Indies cricket administration. But worse than these frequent administrative cock-ups and the regular bitter disputes with their own players, the WICB have presided over a disastrous erosion of coaching standards in the Caribbean. Ex-players regularly bemoan the lack of basic technique in younger players, most recently illustrated by the West Indies Under-19 team being skittled out for 18 by Barbados in the KFC Cup.

It is true that the WICB are not awash with cash and both baseball and basketball are strong rivals in that region. But they are also fortunate in having a resident billionaire and cricket enthusiast in Sir Allen Stanford. Stanford is expanding his company brand through the popular new format of Twenty20 cricket by pumping millions into setting up professional teams, with top class coaching and educational facilities. A clear-sighted WICB would find a way to harmonise these efforts with their own. But they prefer to snipe and to try and find ways to sabotage Stanford's efforts, knowing that they can't stop him. Their new chairman, Julian Hunte has had some harsh things to say about the levels of professionalism in administration and coaching. It remains to be seen whether he will follow this through.

In the short term, the team is trapped in the limbo in which English cricket found itself in the 1990s. Do you continue with the same old faces who have failed time and again, or do you trust in youngsters you know aren't ready and have serious technical flaws? For the time being, they are trusting to the former and hoping that the captaincy of Chris Gayle might energise this collection of players, as it did briefly last summer in England. His team did at least respond to put in an improved performance to take the second one-day international yesterday. But regular Windies watchers will know not to be fooled by this and to back them at short odds against any opposition is a risky venture. They depend almost entirely on Gayle and Chanderpaul and have absolutely no stomach for a fight. Consequently, if I can get matched I will be backing Zimbabwe at [4.0] to win the third one day international on Wednesday.

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