West Indies' sliding T20 dynasty
How the best team in the format - the real pioneers - were embarrassed in the last World Cup.
So Matt Roller wrote an excellent deep dive into the West Indies T20 slide for Cricinfo recently. And it was probably much needed. The West Indies being absolutely drop arse terrible in the World Cup is a far bigger story than England losing the Ashes. But because of how the cricket media works, we will be told about every detail of how England lost a series they were never really much of a chance to win. The West Indies exit was barely looked at.
That is partly a legacy of how the cricket media works. It was built on Tests, and the media and the fans really haven't worked out T20 coverage. More people watch it, but the numbers don't translate to media hits.
And so you can have a T20 dynasty like the West Indies just fall down, and you get some talk about old fellas, and that's where it stops.
Matt instead breaks it down into a bunch of key areas. And I just want to look at a couple. Let's do what we never do with West Indian T20 cricket, and start with bowling.
BOWLING
These are the 200 most used bowlers in T20. There are 12 West Indians on this list.
Which seems low. But I think the bigger problem here is who is at the top. Four of the top five bowlers are seam bowling all rounders. Which sounds wonderful. But the problem is, Dwayne Bravo aside, they're all probably middle overs bowlers. And they all work better as your fifth bowler. In truth, you'd prefer them as your sixth.
Looking further down the list, you can add Kieron Pollard and Fabian Allen to that. They're both probably better as sixth bowlers, not even fifth. So that is half the list gone straight away.
So let's look at the rest. Sunil Narine is an all-round talent, but is obviously a frontline bowler first and foremost. He didn't play because of fitness. Narine isn't the force he once was with the ball, but he's still probably the best T20 bowler the West Indies had, or in this case, didn't have.
It's worth bringing this up as a wider issue. Because it's possible West Indies best T20 team could have Rahkeem Cornwall, Sunil Narine and Shimron Hetmyer, that's a lot of talent to leave out.
Let's move on to Sheldon Cottrell. So he wasn't in the World Cup team because his form had slipped. And it had. But that isn't the real problem, that is that he was their main powerplay bowler. And they really hadn't created others. So when Cottrell wasn't in the team, there was no real backup for him.
Obed McCoy and Ravi Rampaul both played ahead of him. McCoy replaces his arm, but is a death bowler. And Rampaul was a gamble on someone they hoped was in form.
If you look at the other specialist seamers on this list, Kesrick Williams is a death bowler. So the two who could have helped in the powerplay here are Alzarri Joseph and Oshane Thomas. Joseph just hasn't come on as they hoped he would. There's a lot of talent in him, but I can't see him being your main powerplay bowler at a World Cup at the moment.
Oshane Thomas was at the World Cup, but they had no faith in him. If you look at the talent of Cottrell, Joseph and Thomas you have to wonder how the West Indies ended up with none of them as certain starters for the team.
As for the spinners, Akeal Hosein certainly looks very good, but you would love to have an off-spinner to pair him with. Sunil Narine or Rahkeem Cornwall would be ideal. Also worth noting that the West Indies had a leg spinner who had taken a lot of wickets coming into the World Cup and didn't use him. Hayden Walsh Junior adds batting as well, plus is probably in the world's best five fielders.
As it currently stands, their bowling has a lot of issues. They can pick really heavy all rounder lineups but have no bowlers they can trust. They can pick a powerplay specialist, but they have almost nothing at the death. And they don't really have a gun wicket-taker at any stage in the game.
Let's compare all this to 2016. Samuel Badree created havoc back then, Bravo was still a top-quality death bowler, Andre Russell still had working knee joints and could use express pace. Sulieman Benn was a fantastically rare creature.
It wasn't a great bowling unit, but it was experienced without being old, smart and skilled, and there were lots of working parts. Now those options are gone. They really have to hope that form fluctuations or their all rounder gamble pays off for the next World Cup.
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