West Indies plunged into bleak midwinter

People find it hard to pinpoint quite how this West Indies cricket team has sunk from such great heights to once unthinkable depths in recent times. They wonder how the confederation of islands, nurse of so many of the game's greatest and most enduring talents can now muster eleven men who at one point would have disgraced a team representing the smallest island. But surely no place can be more symptomatic of West Indies' decline and fall than Headingley cricket ground. If the defeat inside two days of a team which could still call upon two fast bowlers, Walsh and Ambrose, who could rightly call themselves torch-bearers of a rich heritage of quick bowling, back in 2000 was a sign that West Indies were on the downward spiral, then today's defeat, the worst ever suffered by a West Indian team, surely signifies their lowest ebb.

Any schadenfreude felt by opposing teams so often crushed, oppressed and utterly defeated by the all-conquering West Indian sides of the late 1970s through to the early 1990s, has long since melted into sympathy. Perhaps the only way one can put into perspective their fall from grace is to imagine the Australian team of today, fresh from going through the double-header of an Ashes series and a World Cup without being so careless as to lose once, twenty years down the line being under the heel of Bangladesh.

Even with Chanderpaul, Sarwan and the now departed Lara, this was a poor West Indies team. But, scratch away the surface, as fate did over these last few days, with the injuries to the first two, and there is nothing. Three years ago when West Indies suffered an equally dispiriting tour of England, Dwayne Bravo emerged as the only highlight, the sole player to rise above the gloom. The fact that nothing has changed in the intermittent years must surely be as loud an alarm bell as any; today, Bravo was the only one to show anything approaching resistance, showing that he, alone amongst the young players, has the necessary technique and heart to stand up to proper examination at Test level. When it became apparent that Sarwan's injury threatened his participation in the entire series, about the only name which surfaced was that of Brian Lara; living proog of the total and utter famine of talent from the islands which once produced enough fast bowlers not only to spoil the national team for choice but stock the English county game to boot.

It is in the fast bowling that the dearth of talent bears most acute comparison with that which came before. While the likes of Michael Holding and Colin Croft pontificate from the commentary box, the English batsmen play the Taylor, Powell and Collymore with the sort of ease which is enough to make the likes of Gooch and Boycott who suffered the real thing simultaneously want to weep and reach into the attic for their cricket bags. Rarely can a batsman have brought up a double-century as easily as Pietersen did and not often will even a man who is as capable of dominating bowling as he is have such a trouble-free stay. None of the trio who have played in these first two Tests have genuine pace; no great bounce is extracted and barring the odd spell from Collymore and Powell there has not been much evidence of swing and seam. Even Dwayne Bravo, who caught the eye in 2004 with his lively medium pace, bagging some big hauls, seems to have lost the fizz from his bowling. In three attempts, they have failed to bowl out England and they show no sign of improving on this: only two bowlers, one the spinner Gayle, are averaging under 50 with the ball from the two games. Opening bowlers Powell and Taylor average 77.5 and 125.5 respectively. At the current rate, when Wisden is published next year, the entire attack will rank under the "also bowled" sideline supposedly the preserve of the part-timer. Just one West Indian batsman (barring Chanderpaul who has batted only once) averages over 40 with the bat; barring Strauss and Shah, each of England's top seven are selling their wicket at over 50 runs a throw, three at more than 100.

While West Indies took one look at a wintry Headingley, on one of the coldest days Test cricket has been played, and literally froze, England did their job. They may have won by their third highest margin when an innings is concerned, greater even than that they inflicted upon Bangladesh in 2005, but it was far from a perfect performance. Ryan Sidebottom continued to do precisely the job he was brought in for; swinging the ball late, moving it both ways off the seam and presenting no end of problems to a procession of batsmen ill-equipped to deal with him. He ended with 8 wickets and has probably booked himself a slot for at least two more Test matches, while England would be foolish not to take heed of Nathan Bracken's illustration of the value of a medium-fast left armer at the World Cup and include him in the struggling one-day side as well.

Without Sidebottom, West Indies would still be in this match, and the weather would probably have allowed them to get away with it a second time. For once again, Plunkett and Harmison were models of inconsistency, something which the steady bowling from the other end only exaggerated. The dismissal of Chris Gayle today crystallised Plunkett as a bowler. With two balls of one over, he appeared to be providing Matt Prior with a goalkeeping trial for struggling local side Leeds Utd. The next was the perfect ball for this Headingley wicket: pitched full, on the off stump, it forced Chris Gayle to play, while the slight but sufficient seam movement off the pitch induced a good old outside edge to the slips. That is one weapon he possesses; the other is the surprise in-swinging yorker, which nailed Adam Gilchrist a few times in the winter one-dayers and almost cleaned up Devon Smith today. Plunkett has a potent armoury, but one delivered from a firearm with the wonkiest of sights. The obvious and simple remedy is county cricket; a year or two to develop and hone an action which is so mechanical that it renders itself unrepeatable and unreliable. You would not have given a young Michelangelo a set of poster paints and told him to go paint the Sistine Chapel; so send Plunkett back to the county game and allow him to add the sort of accuracy and experience that served Sidebottom so well in this game to his raw talent. If he is lucky in avoiding injuries, he could return to international cricket a much mote complete bowler by the age of 25 and one capable of taking over the mantle which by that time, the likes of Hoggard and Flintoff will be considering relinquishing.

Alas the way forward for Harmison is less clear. While he showed some signs of improvement, he was still operating well below his best, although he at least gave the speedometer its first real exercise of the series with some 90mph+ missiles. It seems no amount of wickets in county cricket will cure Harmison's Test match ills. The frustration remains that, for the last few years, he seems to start every series, cricket behind him or not, from the same dismal low, before dragging himself somewhere back to parity in the duration. There seems to be no power to retain lessons learned, and each series appears to be a rebuilding process, for a permanently self-collapsing structure. That is why, barring his one match-winning performance against a petrified Pakistan team on an Old Trafford trampoline, his returns over the last 18 months have been so meagre. For a bowler in his 29th year, with over 50 Tests experience and nearly 200 wickets, the Plunkett excuse doesn't really hold water. Harmison now has two Tests against a West Indies team who may have already had their spirit broken, one on his home ground, his panacea, to prove his worth to a team which lacks direction as long as he continues to err in his line of attack.

The rather pitiful silver lining for the West Indies is at least they have an extra day to prepare for the Old Trafford Test, which mercifully does not begin in the same week as this one has ended. They have only their second non-Test fixture of the tour, against MCC, when they will, no-doubt, test drive some of their reserve bowlers. Meanwhile, the likes of Flintoff and Hoggard have the chance to prove their fitness with their counties and give the selectors a few headaches. The sort of problems that, sadly, the current West Indies management can but dream of.