Jan 10 2009
Crisis in West Indies and New Zealand?
With the one day matches being washed out by rains being a common sight in the on going one day series between the West Indies and New Zealand, there is not much cricketing action that can be expected from the nations. However, there is yet something interesting that stroke my mind when I was jobless wandering through cricketnext, when I found the interesting in the squads that both the teams have put forward to play each other. This is something that I could rarely find regarding other teams. Both the teams have players who are well aged to face the challenge, but, regarding the matches they have played, that is not the case.
Both the West Indies and New Zealand teams are equipped with players who are yet to know the way the game of cricket in played at the international level. For the New Zealand team, there is only one player in Jacob Oram who is aged above 30. Infact, his age stands at 30 exact. The rest of the member, including captain Daniel Vettori are aged less than 30. Nevermind, for even a successful team like India and South Africa have majority of the players aged less than 30. The exceptions being Sachin, Jacques Kallis, Vaughan, Jayawardane and others. However, the players who are aged below have a good track record, which is not the case with either the Windies or New Zealand.
If stats are to be believed, New Zealand have only two players in Brendon McCullum and Daniel Vettori who have played 142 and 229 ODIs respectively. Tim Southee could well be exempted from this, for his age of just 20+ has 11 ODIs . The remaining players’ age and stats do not really match up well. Neil Broom (aged 25 & played 45 ODIs), Jamie How (aged 27 & played 31 ODIs), Grant Elliot (aged 29 & played 10 games), Daniel Flynn (aged 23 & played just 10 ODIs) to name a few. This is the fate of the NewZealand team.
Things are neither better in the West Indies squad as well. If not for the likes of Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chandrapaul, the rest of the team have hardly any international exposure. The most experienced player in the West Indies’ bowling department being Fidel Edwards, who has played 43 one day matches at the age of 26. The remaining team involving Lionel Barker, Carlton Baugh, Sewnarine Chattergoon, Shawn findly and other names are being heard only in this post I guess. Now, it is clear as to why the teams New Zealand and West Indies have to rely on fellow players like Chandrapaul, Vettori, Sarwan and the other experienced lads to win or save a match.
This was not even in the dreams of the cricket fans, regarding the teams- West Indies and New Zealand. It is now clear that the New Zealand as well as the West Indies teams are facing an acute shortage of players, which has forced the selection committee to go in for inexperienced kids. If this is the trend, our captain M S Dhoni can afford to relax without cracking his head for the tour of New Zealand somewhere in March.
