Only a day after the West Indies endured one of their worst performances in nearly a century of playing Test matches, the president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) was looking to the past to improve the future.
WICB president Kishore Shallow on Tuesday said that he plans to enlist Caribbean cricket greats such as Viv Richards and Brian Lara to help a West Indies lineup who scored just 27 runs in their second innings — one run past the all-time Test record for low totals — while losing the third of three Tests to Australia.
The batting collapse continued a pattern for the West Indies Test team — they have not won a Test series since 2022-2023, when they beat Zimbabwe in the Caribbean.
Photo: AFP
Since then they have drawn three and lost five series. They were swept in 3-0 over the past few weeks at home against Australia, culminating in the humiliating defeat in the third Test on Monday.
Shallow had seen enough.
“The result hurts deeply, not only because of how we lost, but because of what West Indies cricket has always represented to our people: pride, identity and possibility,” Shallow said in a statement. “There will be some sleepless nights ahead for many of us, including the players, who I know feel this loss just as heavily. We are in a rebuilding phase, steadily investing in the next generation, and reigniting the spirit that has long made West Indies cricket a force in the world.”
Indeed they were a force. By the late 1970s, the Caribbean side were recognized as unofficial world champions, a title they retained throughout the 1980s thanks to batters like Richards complemented by feared bowlers like Curtly Ambrose.
Now, Richards is to be part of the rescue package.
Shallow said he had ordered an emergency meeting to review the Australia Test series, “particularly the final match.”
Some of the fast bowling produced against Australia in the series resembled the days when West Indies pacemen dominated the world of cricket, but batting deficiencies let the team down badly.
“To strengthen the discussions, I have extended invitations to three of our greatest batsmen ever: Clive Lloyd, Vivian Richards and Brian Lara,” Shallow said. “They will join past greats Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Desmond Haynes and Ian Bradshaw.”
Lloyd, who is 80, was a West Indies captain and leading figure of the team’s overwhelming success in his era. He scored 19 centuries in his 110-Test career that ended in 1984. The 73-year-old Richards scored 24 centuries in 121 Test matches.
Lara, who retired in 2006, scored 34 centuries in 131 Tests. He holds the record for the most runs scored in a Test innings — 400 not out against England in 2004. It remains the only quadruple century in Test cricket.
Shallow said that he was not paying lip service to the chaos surrounding the Test team.
“This engagement is not ceremonial,” Shallow said. “These are men who helped define our golden eras, and their perspectives will be invaluable as we shape the next phase of our cricket development.”
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