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India vs West Indies: Caribbean cruise begins now, Antigua Test from Thursday

India tour West Indies for a four Test match series starting from July 21 under the watchful eyes of new head coach Anil Kumble.

India vs West Indies, West Indies vs India, India, West Indies, Ind vs WI, WI vs Ind, India tour of West Indies, Virat kohli, Kohli, Anil Kumble, Kumble, India cricket, Cricket India, Indian cricket team, Team India, Cricket India had their first practice session at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua. The first of four Test series begins July 21. (Source: Facebook)

Just down the road towards the left of the matchbox-like VC Bird International Airport are a line of imposing but defunct buildings that are the relics of something tragicomic in Antigua. “Stanford International Bank” proudly reads the marble plinth at the sealed gate. The moss-smattered walls and unkempt garden clearly suggests it hasn’t seen any form of human intrusion for a fair while, though the Georgian-style architecture is remindful of a lingering grandeur. “Eet has been locked foor good,” scowls the cabbie. “Good riddance. He making fools of us,” she blares.

The backstory is well storied. Sir Allen Stanford — controversially knighted by the Antigua government in 2006, much before his grimy empire was drowned in the cobalt blue waters that envelope the coral island — is serving a 110-year prison term in the US. But there’s no escaping the ghosts of Stanford in the precincts of the airport, which was in fact once called the Stanford Airport.

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From a distance, you can see the floodlight towers of what once was the Stanford Cricket Stadium, which Stanford had envisaged constructing the day he landed in Antigua in the early 90s as a blooming entrepreneur, when he saw some airport staff and labourers playing cricket on an adjacent street and was instantly convinced of the game’s commercial potential in the idyllic island. The stadium — which never hosted a match after the expansive winner-take $20million contest between England and Stanford Superstars—now houses the airport security staff.

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His arrest, in 2012, broke the spine of the Antiguan economy, the repercussions of which are still being felt—the estimated economic lump was almost to the tune of 434 million Eastern Caribbean dollars. Tourism, the main income of Antiguans, too took a massive hit. “First (when he used to visit Antigua) it was a festival for us. He brought a lot of beeg people to the country. Hollywood stars and beeg business men and models. There were beeg parties and eet was the best time to be in Antee-gaa,” she wistfully reminiscences, with as much as angst as nostalgia. They clearly don’t like to be reminded of him. But they wouldn’t forget him either. He will remain as a sort of charming villain in run-of-the mill thriller, whom you despise but at the same time feel empathetic in the climax.

Caribbean cricket will certainly feel a pervading sense of empathy towards him, for the Stanford league he initiated in 2006 did spark a revival of interest in the game in the islands, which for long was deeply disenchanted by the spiralling fortunes of West Indies cricket and the administrative mess it was engulfed in. There of course were vested commercial interests—so do all leagues in all sports—but he sensed that the best way to revive cricket in Caribbeans was embracing the shortest form, a brand of cricket that must not have born in these island, but that fully embodies the blusterous spirt of them. In hindsight, he was a mendicant with a soothing balm, as T20 cricket is not only the most popular form of the game in the islands — the Caribbean Premier League a runaway success but also the only format wherein the West Indies are genuine world-beaters, their cricketers the most-sought after entities in leagues world over.

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Low-key settings

Festive offer

Hence, Test matches are no longer grand affairs; they don’t evoke as much as passion as it used to in their glory days or even much after their supremacy had faded. There is hardly any bustle about the forthcoming four-Test series. There now is a sort of practised detachment, best symbolised by the terrible turnout for Tests, especially in Antigua. “We don’t follow cricket now because we are always losing,” quipped the genial customs officer at the immigration centre. Behind her is an embossed replica bat of Brian Lara (the 400 one) on the wall and a photograph of island’s most celebrated cricketer, Sir Vivian Richards, flashing that beatific smile. Certainly, the shortage, or non-existence of such larger-than-life cricketers is a blatantly obvious deterrent. Even if there are a few marquee names around, none of them are in the five-day scheme.

Hence, another series unfolds in the Caribbeans with the customary question being the margin of defeat than the illusory promise of that distant spark of revival. After the recent thrashings by Australia in Tests, both home and away, the optimism that attended the shared series against England last year has swiftly dwindled and replaced by a familiar cynicism. Thus, the numberless experiments and the gradual flushing out — to use a milder word—of senior hands like Denesh Ramdin.

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The thought pattern of the selectors and the team management is crystal clear — they want to forge a youth-reliant team, getting rid of all the supposed mandarins of the past. But the unfortunate thing about this is that there is a depressing shortage of quality players. Just think of this — West Indies will be heading to the first Tests with a squad that has just one genuine fast bowler — Shannon Gabriel. Not that the likes of Jason Holder and Carlos Brathwaite are worthless, but they are as far removed from the archetypal West Indies battery as it could get (then West Indies pacers had long ceased to infuse dread in batsmen).

Their batsmen, despite sporadic bursts of incandescence, haven’t quite showed the sort of incremental progress Test cricket demands. In this sense, it’s a throwback to the carefree, indulgent 50s of West Indies cricket, when they could entertain as much as self destroy.

Nothing for granted

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Indians, having gone beyond the embryonic stage of redevelopment and formed a nucleus for future, would care much less about the plight of their opponents. Rather, they would merely be primed to keep winning as they had been in Tests last year. True that their recent wins have come against a transitioning Sri Lanka and clueless South Africans on doctored surfaces, but there’s no doubt they are an upwardly mobile side, aspiring to shed their hideous overseas record that had been haunting them since their last Test series win outside Asia—incidentally in the West Indies—and as significantly tone-setting a Test-heavy home season.

A series win here wouldn’t instantly restore their credentials overseas, but this could be the first step in their long ascent. Coach Anil Kumble, in his pre-departure press conference, put this in perspective. “I think the expectations to win is constantly going to be there for the Indian team. It’s always going to be there, it’s not going to change. West Indies is a tough side, at home they know the conditions there. Yes, obviously, they are in a transition phase and there will be some young West Indian players playing Test cricket. Like you mentioned, we are expected to win and the conditions are similar to what we get here at home. It’s all about Test cricket and how you win session. That’s going to be the motivation I think, instead of looking at the opposition. One thing that we would like to drive as a team is to look at our own selves and improve constantly,” he had said.

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Likewise, Kohli too had spoken respectfully of their opponents. Maybe, it’s genuine respect. Maybe, it’s genuine diplomacy. For West Indies, when slighted, have shown a rare wherewithal to summon an unprecedented spirit of togetherness. Alastair Cook could vouch for it, as a stray comment from ECB chairman Colin Graves saw West Indies putting on their most spirited performance in recent times last year. Mark Nicholas provided the spur in the build-up to the World T20 this year. But in a seemingly lopsided series like this, you wish someone’s tongue slipped. And to be remembered by posterity as a Freudian slip.

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First uploaded on: 19-07-2016 at 01:21 IST
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