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Historic Frank Worrell trophy up for grabs

On June 25, West Indies and Australia will once more challenge each other for the honour of claiming the Frank Worrell trophy. This confrontation had its beginning after a fantastic series between the two competitors in 1960/61. The first Test match, played at Brisbane, ended in a tie, the first time that result ever occurred in a Test match. So much so, it inspired a book written by the Australian, Jack Fingleton, a previous opening batsman for his country. The game itself, like the book, attracted high praise. The second Test in Melbourne was won by Australia by seven wickets, on the fourth day. The West Indies reversed the odds in the third Test, played at Sydney, with a convincing win by 222 runs. The fourth Test at Adelaide had a dramatic ending. Australia had a target of 455 runs and when nine wickets were down for 207 runs, with one hour and fifty minutes left in the game, it seemed all over bar the shouting. Alas! [caption id="attachment_1162734" align="alignnone" width="1024"] West Indies fast bowler Jayden Seales trains on June 24 ahead of the first Test match against Australia in Barbados. -[/caption] The two last batsmen at the crease, Ken Mackay (number seven) and Lindsay Kline (number 11), played out the remainder of the day without a chance of winning, but pulled off an almost impossible draw, still 150 runs behind the West Indies. The final Test at Melbourne was another humdinger. Australia won by two wickets and that victory contained tremendous suspense as it was close – down to the final ball. The final result of the series was Australia winning two matches, West Indies one, a draw and one tied match It is still considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest Test series in history. A trophy was designed and named after Sir Frank Worrell because of the attractive, bright cricket his team had played and how close the series had been. A couple hundred thousand Australian citizens flooded the streets of Melbourne to bid the team farewell as the players enjoyed a ticker-tape parade in open vehicles, shaking hands with the surrounding mass of people, so popular were they. Since that time, Australia have beaten West Indies more times than not, hence they have had possession of the Frank Worrell trophy in their cabinet for a far longer time than West Indies. Now, West Indies have arrived at another Test series against Australia while they have been scraping the bottom of the barrel for some years. However, while they had the experienced Worrell for that excellent series in 1960/61, at present they will be led at home by Roston Chase who was not considered good enough to be chosen for Windies in the past two years. Daren Sammy, head coach of the West Indies team, hints at his modus operandi in his selection of teams. This has come because of a rebuttal of his selection policy which reflects the squad to play against Australia in the three-Test series that starts on June 25. This was Sammy’s explanation of his selection strategy: “I had the analysts dive into the top three teams in the world and the different batting positions, what the best of the top three are doing in those different positions, the roles they are playing and then we compared them to ours and what we are doing.” Therefore, Sammy is saying that he doesn’t know enough about cricket to be able to choose a team to play a Test match. He has to observe what batsmen of other Test teams are doing, their position in the batting order, check their roles, then we compare them to ours, and this is how he arrives at his decision. So what about the knowledge of local conditions, natural ability of West Indian batsmen, application of batsmanship, form at practice, reaction to advice, confidence (and the encouragement needed to build it), temperament (the batsman for the big occasion), plus the many other facets of playing the game the West Indian way, and most important of all, the distinction within a players’ breast of representing the WI, and approaching the game with the natural flair of the Caribbean man? [caption id="attachment_1162733" align="alignnone" width="1024"] -[/caption] These positive virtues have nothing to do with the Aussie, Indian, Englishman, who are benefiting from their own hard work and culture. Where CWI administration went wrong. 1. Having one main decision-making selector. 2. Having one head coach for all formats. 3. Too many (ten) management members on the squad: four coaches,three fitness experts, one team analyst, one content and media officer and one manager. What a waste of money for a bottom-of-the-table team. Maybe they need them to lift the trophy. On June 25, West Indies and Australia will once more challenge each other for the honour of claiming the Frank Worrell trophy. The post Historic Frank Worrell trophy up for grabs appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.