Good signs for West Indian cricket

West Indies have just squared the series against Sri Lanka with a well deserved 6 wicket win at the Queens park oval, T&T. The celebrations in the West Indian camp and the elation of the spectators present in the ground gives an indication of how much this victory meant to West Indian cricket. They had lost 7 consecutive test series before this and had not won a match at the Queens park oval since 2000. This was also just their 3rd win at home since the dawn of the new millennium.

'Flattering to deceive' has been the most commonly used phrase with reference to the Windies off late. This has been because of their tendency to implode from positions of strength. Winning test matches require a consistent and all round effort and the west indians had provided flashes of brilliance but had failed to stitch an overall effort to win matches.

The current West Indian team has a good look about it. Taylor,Powell, and Edwards form a potent pace attack with able support from Bravo and Gayle. On their day they can rip through any batting line up as they showed both in South Africa and again in this test match. These bowlers are gaining experience and are improved performers and this bodes well for the Windies. With Ramnaresh Sarwan back in the team the batting looks much better. When Gayle,Sarwan, and Chanderpaul are in good form they have the capability to post decent totals. What they need is for youngsters like Chattergoon who made his debut to consistenly contribute at the top of the order. They need to make better use of Bravo as a batsman and should play him at 5 or 6.

These are all good signs for West Indian cricket and it always makes me happy to see them doing well. One hopes that they will continue to build on this performance and become a decent test match team again.