Former Players Chide Subpar Players

The current crop of West Indies cricketers and those vying for a spot on the region’s senior team have come in for harsh criticisms by two of the game’s greatest players. Former fast bowling stars, Sir Curtly Ambrose and Sir Andy Roberts, agree that regional players are not investing enough time in developing their personal game and, as a result, struggle when given an opportunity to play at the highest level.
Sir Andy reminded that this has been his argument for some time now and that players must realise that it is only through hard work they will see success. “We are still making noise for these guys who are averaging 19 and 20 to be in the Test team, so as I’ve always said, I blame the players themselves for not raising their levels to the standard where it should be. Don’t blame the board, don’t blame administrators, blame yourself because you’re the one who needs to put in the work and that is why we are struggling, we do not have any quality players in the region,” the Antiguan said. Sir Curtly agreed with his fellow Antiguan, adding that the poor performances evident during the regional tournaments is a reflection on the subpar quality of the regional players.
“When the West Indies team was the best team in the world, for about 10 to 15 years, the regional cricket standard was so high that when you got to international level you are not so far off, so with just a little tweak here and there you’d be on your way. Most of these great players from the past dominated regional cricket year in and year out,” he said. “Look at the standard right now. It is a poor standard we have in the region at the moment and most of these batsmen are still averaging 25 with the bat. Bowlers are averaging 30 runs per wicket in regional cricket, which is at a poor standard at the moment. So, how do we expect them to dominate international cricket. When you’re averaging 25 with the bat in regional cricket and go to Test level, you’re going to average 15,” he added.
Now a level 3 certified coach, Sir Curtly also urged the players to prepare for what is predicted will be a tough ICC World Cup following their qualification via the playoffs which were held in March. “If we didn’t qualify, then that would have been a disaster for West Indies cricket … So qualifying was the main aim and it doesn’t matter how you get there, you’ve qualified and that’s the end result but it wasn’t an impressive performance. We have a lot of work that has to be done before this World Cup in England, because if we go to England playing the same way we played in that qualifying round then we could be embarrassed,” he said. West Indies and Afghanistan qualified out of the Super Sixes to earn a spot in the 2019 event slated for England.