To make sense of the West Indies’ progress to the final of the World Twenty20, it is useful to think of them as a way forward. Between this tournament beginning and the last in 2014 ending, they had only played eight Twenty20 international matches.
Phil Simmons, their coach, took over at the end of March 2015 but before this tournament had only overseen two T20Is with the side. He had not, for example, ever worked with Chris Gayle before.
Darren Sammy, their captain, acknowledged before their semi-final against India that the core of this side may not play together again — Dwayne Bravo, Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Sammy himself are unlikely to be around for the next World Twenty20. Neither do they have too many internationals lined up on their calendar.
So this is not so much a team as a fleeting coming together of a disparate group of players for a two-week window.
Do not take that derogatorily as the waste of a wonky set-up that cannot get its best group of players together; view them instead as a musical supergroup of proficient, successful solo artists pooled together for one great masterpiece.
Are they, in fact, showing us a future we cannot yet envisage, in which this West Indies are remembered as the world’s first international Twenty20 franchise side? That is, effectively, how various circumstances have forced them to operate right now.
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At the heart of the side are experienced and immaculately honed professionals — and it is worth emphasising professionals — who have sharpened their skills in the world’s best domestic Twenty20 leagues.
They know exactly what they need to do and they know their games, both in its limitations and strengths. This was what Simmons said of Chris Gayle’s preparations and strategy after his hundred against England.
“I think it’s as simple as you see it because this is the first time I’ve been with the T20 team since I’ve been back,” he said.
“Sitting and talking to him and trying to see how he works this out and it’s as simple as he makes it look out there.
got to take him down so it’s as simple as that.”
When we talk of a future where players are the products of this new reconfiguration of the game, we are looking, perhaps, at the first batch right here.
This is the professionalism of this new era — cricketers go to far-flung places, evolve under different environments and influences, chivvy away at their skills, work out what works and work under the pressure of high earnings. Then they come and occasionally play for the national side.
And guess what? That is a chain reaction we have seen before and it was the West Indies back then as well. What, after all, was their time in English county cricket in the 1970s and their experiences with Kerry Packer if not an earlier version of this evolution? In that age it was those experiences that fuelled them towards becoming the finest Test and ODI side in the world.
In our time now, it is similar experiences that have made them such a force in this format.
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The great Clive Lloyd, now their chief selector and in his 50th year with West Indies cricket, believes that whenever the time has been ripe in cricket for a leap forward, the West Indies have been at the forefront. Quibble over the details of that by all means, but in essence it is difficult to disagree.
Over the course of their progress here, and in recent years, an old impression has also re-emerged, that they are the great entertainers of the game.
That is why the video of Sammy and Bravo jiving their way wholeheartedly into the team hotel after the win over India went viral; or that we can laugh at Gayle’s Instagram posts, the latest of which has a picture of the team jumping over the barrier in front of their dugout after beating India, to which the caption reads: “When u and your boyz chiiling on the corner then gun shots start to fire ... its every man for them self”.
This is not quite veni, vidi, vici but that they came, they played, they enjoyed.
That impression is not entirely off, not just because it has been that way for so long, but because it is the way they are. They play up the image happily, but it comes from a true place inside.
The problem is that it is not whole. Within it gets lost the fact that they play smart, and the image leads to regrettable comments such as those by Mark Nicholas who, in previewing their chances for this very tournament wrote: “West Indies are short of brains but have IPL history in their ranks.”
That has not only been perfect motivation for Sammy’s men in this tournament, and possibly through history, but it is offensive analysis, as well as incorrect. “It’s not just about being calypso cricketers,” as Lloyd said. “We are intelligent professionals men and women.”
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It is an intelligence that is theirs uniquely. Conventional wisdom in the format suggests that as few balls of the 120 as possible need to go scoreless.
Yet of the 575 balls West Indies have faced here, 45.44 per cent been dots, the highest of any of the sides in the Super 10s.
Instead their power-hitting ability has made up for those dots — no side has hit as many sixes. It goes right through the order so that at no stage does the opposition feel a release. Here too, it feels as if power-hitting is being taken to new frontiers, in execution and planning; it is not just having the strength to do it, or even the self-belief, both of which they have plenty of.
Power-hitting is an act of cricketing intelligence and skill, honed over hours of practice, in different situations, against different bowlers and angles. The intelligence, rather than the strength, is evident in how they deploy it: in Gayle choosing to take down Rashid, for instance, or in Lendl Simmons not panicking after dot balls begin an over.
To be able to think straight and clear in a situation when time is always against you is nothing if not intelligence. So Simmons’ assessment of Gayle’s batting should not be mistaken: he does keep it simple. But he is not simple-minded, an argument applicable to their side, not least their bowling (which, as in this piece, often gets overlooked).
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Stringing it together has been Sammy, the captain. He has been marginal in performance — 11 balls faced and 12 balls bowled his entire output here — but central as a leader. Out on the field he, with help from his lieutenants, is in control. Off it, he has been involved with every single player in his squad, on a one-to-one basis.
And cleverly, he has pulled his side together inside a fortress, imploring them to rage against a range of outside forces placed against them. Some are justified, like Nicholas’ words, or the continuing problems with the cricket board.
Others, like insisting his side is consistently underestimated, is a cannier ploy; no serious observer of their Twenty20 cricket, or their record at this event (twice semi-finalists, once winners and now in the final) writes off their chances.
Sammy has always been one of cricket’s most endearing personalities, and the belief and dignity with which he spoke yesterday before the final are traits that have been the prominent causes for that endearment.
It says something about West Indies cricket that he finds himself angled now 180 degrees to when he first became captain. He was seen as an establishment lackey then, not worth his place in the side.
Now he is on the other side, leading in dispute. And should he win on Sunday, he will become the second captain in their history, after Lloyd, to win two world titles.
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