Sports Betting Articles
Resurgent West Indies Show Signs of Recovery
By Philip Oliver
It is now easy to forget how good past West Indian teams were. In an age before world rankings, they were the undisputed best from the late 1970's until the early 1990's. Famed for their aggressive strokeplay and even more aggressive fast bowling, the men from the Caribbean struck fear into opposition teams. If Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge did not take the game away from you with the bat, the likes of Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall did with the ball.
Those high calibre players were never replaced - although perhaps the best ever West Indian, Brian Lara was part of the next generation - and the ranking system of today does not lie. As the eighth best Test team in the world, the only way is up.
Cricket in the region was dogged my allegations of under-funding, mismanagement and team disputes and results became worse each year: from the beginning of 2004 until the end of 2007 the West Indies played 37 Tests, losing 24, drawing 11 and winning just two. That is until they played South Africa, the third ranked team in the world, at Port Elizabeth in December.
A stunning 128 run win proved that the current squad do have the attributes to challenge the best in the world, which was further proved by a closely-fought 1-1 draw home with Sri Lanka earlier this year. Most notably, the Windies gave Australia a massive scare in a narrow defeat at Jamaica in the current series opener, confirming that the team is now on an upward curve.
Injury problems and Lara's retirement initially had a destabilising effect, but players are now thriving on the extra responsibility. Shivnarine Chanderpaul is in the form of his life, hitting five half centuries and four three figure scores in his last 15 Test innings. Dwayne Bravo is now a genuine allrounder and Fidel Edwards, Darren Sammy and Runako Morton are fulfilling their youthful potential.
The West Indies are still major outsiders in the series betting against Australia, but the signs of improvement are significant enough for it to be said that the Windies are on their way back. It might be some time before they are again the best team in Test cricket, but it should come sooner than them again being the worst.
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