After losing the test series against New Zealand earlier very badly. I was looking and trying to figure out that it was the same cricket nation who has produced talents like Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Brian Lara, Courtney Walsh, Courtney Ambrose and Shivnarine Chanderpaul. It’s hard to believe that roots of one team have transformed into such a line-up that they don't want to play test cricket for even 5-days and end up the match in 3 days to get to the results. Let us try to go through the three cricket phases of the West Indies cricket team that are the 80s, 90s and 2000s and look to find out what has gone wrong after every era. Why can't I be honest with the facts? The modern-day West Indies cricket team is the one of the worst ever teams in the history of West Indies cricket. It is quite sad to see, there was the time when they were the exact opposite of this modern day team. In the 70s and 80s, West Indies Cricket team were the most destructive side in the cricket world, dreaded to compete in a match by any cricket playing nation.
Further, in the 90s and 2000s, world cricket had witnessed some of the furious contenders that gave cricket playing nations a nightmare of bad dreams, who might proceed to become greats in cricket. While in the present times, players are very inexperienced and attempting to overcome the hurdles with no experience factor. To be honest they are not competitive and not sufficient enough at all to play some serious level cricket like we used to witness back then in the 70s or 80s.
Most of the players only want to concentrate on the T’20l leagues with that thing the communication factor among the cricket players and the West Indies cricket board is also not good, even the former player like Michael Holding has said already I don't watch T20 cricket at all and don't consider it a part of game. The current situation of West Indies cricket is definitely at the edge of the debacle. Why can’t we go through the West Indian cricket team of the 80s, 90s and 2000s and think back to the brilliant long periods of this cricket team, while attempting to make sense of which things have turned out badly in their change in the past 4 decades?
WEST INDIES CRICKET TEAM IN THE 1980s:
Arguably, the golden era in the West Indies cricket history. If history of cricket ever looks back the name this West Indies team of 70s or 80s will be at the top of the pinnacle. They were the most difficult to beat or even compete in their own backyard or away from the home conditions anywhere in the world – such was the impact and aura of that time. From opening batsman to middle-order batsman; batting all-rounder to bowling all-rounder; frontline bowlers everyone were the match-winners. It was the era when world cricket witnessed the bowler of whispering death, which was the nightmare a complete bad dream to even the great batsman of that era in any conditions. A pretty different era which hardly provided any advantages to a batsman even the helmets were not the part of game like in the current era of cricket. The bowlers of that era like Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner and Andy Roberts made the life complete nightmare for the batsman under those conditions. Even the player like Sunil Gavaskar has believed playing against such teams who have a long list of unplayable bowlers was definitely not everyone's cup of tea for the batsman of that era.
With the most complete team in every department from the fearless captain with the vision, aggressive match-winning players and genuine match-winning all-rounders. It won't be any wrong to admit that this was one of the most invincible team in the cricket history ever.
Players like Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd (Captain), Gordon Greenidge, Jeff Dujon (Wicket keeper), Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner and Micheal Holding were the part of playing Eleven.
WEST INDIES CRICKET TEAM IN THE 1990s:
The team of 1990s was in the evolution period. Very unfair to find the alternatives of previous team of 80s, they were the inborn talents or we can say the trendsetters but still there were some interesting characters in the 90s team of West Indies.
The fine example of it, the great Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh bowling pair, they were the most dominating bowling duo in the 90s. These two have followed the legacy by the bowlers of the like Joel Garner and Micheal Holding and continued the destroyed the batting line-up of great team.
While no doubt in that they had the dominating bowling side even in the 90s, but still the West Indies cricket team was looking for someone like Viv Richards or Clive Lloyd who can fill the batting space in this team and then the came to the “Prince of Trinidad” Brian Lara who has played in the era of Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting and broke many records and made him into history books. His record of 400* is still under his name. The most stylish left-handed batsman in the test cricket history ever produced by West Indies.
The team was quite good and often it was seen when Carl Hopper and Shivnarine Chanderpaul have emerged out from this cricketing nation to have played cricket in the 90s. With such good characters in the team, they were quite competitive not as much in the 1980s but still, they were good.
Players like Brian Lara, Carl Hopper, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ian Bishop, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh were the part of playing Eleven.
WEST INDIES CRICKET TEAM IN THE 2000s:
We have seen the two different phases of the West Indies cricket team in the two decades. In the 80s, they were the most invincible side in cricket while in the 90s they were somehow equal like other teams and with the start of 2000 era they have completely lost their its roots and existence was buried with the line-up came in the team.
Even if we compare the team 2000s with previous two decades team, there is a fine line which can easily distinguish that the team was in no form or any shape of playing serious cricket. There was one good thing that had happened in the 2000s that West Indies cricket brought some exciting players who would've loved to play the formats like T20l tournaments more rather being the part of red-ball cricket.
Legends were retired, and players who were coming up more focusing on tournaments like T20l or limited-overs cricket fixtures with worst bowling unit ever in the history of West Indies cricket team. The only major ICC tournaments they have lifted after the 80s was champions league trophy in the 2004 and T20l World Cups 2012 and 2016. It gives the brief also that this team only wants to focus on the formats like T20l fixtures anymore.
Players like Chris Gayle, Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Fidel Edwards, Tino Best, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Darren Sammy, and Ricardo Powell were the part of playing Eleven.
