PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad — On day four of the fourth Test between West Indies and India, 59-year-old James Burton sat in front of the Brian Lara pavilion at the Queen’s Park Oval. He wore a yellow t-shirt, with the words ‘ground staff’ printed across the back. Over the course of this ill-fated Test, Burton and his garms were seen more than the white flannels of either side, let alone the red cherry.
“The umpires have noted that there is an improvement from yesterday. But the ground is still too soft for the match to continue,” he said as the game petered out. When asked what could possibly be done to avoid the developing farce, the answer was simple, accentuated with a shrug. “There has been too much rain, and there is nothing we can do.”
It is monsoon season in Trinidad right now. In fact, the entire Caribbean is on hurricane watch this time of the year. What a time to play cricket. Rain is to be expected and there has been quite a bit of it too, with two entire days washed out in the second and third Tests in Jamaica and St. Lucia respectively. Port of Spain was caught out with a touch more precipitation.
West Indies last played here against New Zealand in June 2014, and the difference in scheduling from June to August is abundantly clear to anyone who saw that previous Test and this one. So was the fact that no Super Sopper was on hand to aid the ground staff, despite Queen’s Park Cricket Club spending a fortune in celebrating its 125th anniversary over the course of this Test weekend.
Recuperating from their latest IPL season, team India weren’t able to tour here in June. And the QPCC can be forgiven this slight in preparation, although it is tough to anticipate a similar plight for any T20 match at this venue. Perhaps it is representative of the widening gulf between the two formats across world cricket. Lucrative leagues versus five-day cricket, is almost a no-contest outside of England and Australia, and crowd attendances over the entire series in comparison with the Caribbean Premier League running simultaneously are a marked pointer.
West Indies then finished the series just as they had begun it – in a state of oblivion and the disparity between their Test cricketers and T20 mercenaries a glaring one.
“When you are not doing well, you have to listen, open your eyes and ears to solutions and advice,” said West Indies’ legend Sir Vivian Richards. “I am not quite sure what is happening at present. You hear all sort of talk. But I hope people can come to their common sense, because West Indies cricket is much bigger than administration and much bigger than players. They need to come together and help protect it.”
Meanwhile, India left for home, content in their preparation for its long-haul home season. Their approach here was simple; give an outing to as many squad members as possible and get ready for the challenges ahead. It certainly explained their selection for this fourth Test, dropping the fifth bowler and playing a seventh batsman. In fact, quite a few members of the team mentioned that the No1 Test ranking was their long-term goal. Those last words being the key.
“Had Pakistan not won the fourth Test in England, or had we drawn the third Test in St. Lucia, the rankings would have looked very different. It was a very short-term incentive because we understand that the points’ table is very close. As a team we would like to assess ourselves at the end of the season, not one Test at a time,” said skipper Virat Kohli.
Now consider Misbah-ul-Haq’s response to moving top of the ICC ranings released on Monday afternoon, where he proclaimed his team to be the world’s best. Amidst the jubilation of this first-time feat, he too spoke about consistency in their adopted home and overseas.
Both India and Pakistan have a tough schedule ahead of them. Over the course of the next seven months, they will be in action simultaneously, taking on the same foes; West Indies, England, New Zealand and Australia. It is a brilliant proposition for anyone playing up the Test championship cause.
Any cricket fanatic wishes to see India play Pakistan somewhere along the way. A headline event, the top two sides in a summit clash. It would also provide some much needed context to the current ranking system, helping fans overlook the merry-go-round of the past fortnight.
Not only that, it would be the kind of contrasting battle that makes Test cricket so enthralling. Kohli’s aggression against Misbah’s patience. Two highly skilled exponents of swing, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Amir, seeing who can hoop it most effectively. An examination of the high dependable Younis Khan and Ajinkya Rahane. The high-octane bowl-out between Mohammed Shami and Wahab Riaz. A shoot-out between Ravi Ashwin and Yasir Shah for the best spinner in the world. It would make for some spectacle but, alas, strained Indo-Pak ties make it nearly impossible for the two teams to meet on common ground.
It was 2007 the last time these two sides engaged in the longer format. Almost a decade later and there is no inkling when or where the next series will come around. For, right or wrong, this relationship is dependent on a variety of extraneous circumstances. It puts the ICC rankings into perspective – a short burst of excitement and then the resumption of morose proceedings that only make for weekly calculations.
Wet outfields and the decline of the West Indies aren’t the only headaches for Test cricket right now, they are just the easiest examples to point toward.
