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As if Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s batting woes were not disheartening enough, his wicketkeeping abilities are now being questioned by Syed Kirmani, the former Indian wicketkeeper.”I don’t like the way he stands on his heels while waiting for the ball to be delivered. A wicketkeeper should always be on his toes,” said Kirmani, who was arguably India’s greatest wicketkeeper as his record of Tests and victims testify.Dhoni’s batting slump, especially his vulnerability against the rising ball, has been a point of discussion of late but his wicketkeeping will need some analysis as well. Kirmani observed that Dhoni was not completely down when a ball was just about to be delivered, making him too committed to his movements and diminishing his reflexes.”But that is hardly strange,” Kirmani said. “Nobody in world is worried about the quality of wicketkeeping. You would look for bowling, batting and fielding coaches but no coach, I am sorry to say, knows a thing about wicketkeeping. You would have specialists in all areas including diet, training, cardio-vascular and what not, but a man who is central to the team’s strategy in the middle is completely ignored.”Kirmani advised Dhoni not to be burdened by the added responsibility as a frontline batsman. “It is not a burden, he shouldn’t take it as a burden because then he would only chart the route to his failure. He should take it up with enthusiasm. History has many examples where wicketkeepers have taken up the dual responsibility of shoring up the team’s batting so it is not something unusual.”That’s been the trend worldwide and Dhoni is no exception. It’s been [happening] for a long time now. I would even say that in nearly two decades since I have been out, I have hardly seen any natural wicketkeeper to catch my eye.”Kirmani picked out chinks in even Adam Gilchrist’s wicketkeeping. “I am particularly shocked when wicketkeepers, even Gilchrist, collect balls swinging their arms sideways. Why don’t they get behind the line of the ball. That’s the surest way to ensure that the ball, if it misses your hands, could still bounce off your body.”

Tim Nielsen wants Australia to emerge from their first-final loss with an aggressive mind-set during the key moments of their must-win encounter at the Gabba on Tuesday. Nielsen was disappointed his team stumbled a couple of times when it had control at the SCG, where India won by six wickets, and asked the players to sharpen their outlook after two sloppy defeats in three days.”It’s probably the mental side of the game that’s let us down in the last couple of games,” Nielsen said. “We had a couple of situations [at the SCG] when we felt we were on top and then gave our wickets away, which then put us back under pressure. For us to have some success in this series we have to make sure we take the game by the throat when we have the opportunity and don’t give up that momentum.”The 100-run partnership between Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds threatened to revive Australia after they were 3 for 24 in Sydney, but both batsmen departed to outfield catches in quick succession and they were in more severe discomfort at 5 for 135. The home side also sensed a chance shortly before the halfway stage of the India innings and was unable to maintain the bowling or fielding intensity required to prevent India from cruising to victory.Team meetings were held in the dressing room after Sunday’s game and in Brisbane on Monday as they contemplated how to fight back. “The biggest challenge for all of us is not to get too carried away with one loss,” Nielsen said. “We certainly had a chat last night and Ricky put it pretty clearly what he expected from the group, not just about playing cricket but the way we present ourselves and the way we go about our things. We want to make sure we’re competing for 100 overs of the game.”Australia’s players feel comfortable at the Gabba and are excited to be playing on a pitch with bounce and carry, especially when compared with the lower and slower surfaces around the country. The team will accept any advantage knowing that it has to win the second match to extend the series to a third final in Adelaide on Friday.”It is a tough challenge, it’s not the ideal situation to be in, to be 1-0 down,” Nielsen said. “India played better than us and we didn’t play to our potential, so our challenge now is to have a quick turnaround and get ready to go and put our best foot forward.”

Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka’s captain, expressed the fullest confidence that his team could overcome English conditions and England if they perform to their capabilities.”There are no fears out there. There’s nothing we can’t handle. It’s just how we prepare ourselves mentally and physically and what we want to do,” he said on the eve of Sri Lanka’s 80-day tour.”We have six or seven young guys going to England on a big tour and they will learn a lot. That will be an investment itself for the future.”Sizing up England, Jayawardene was well aware that it would be tough against a well balanced squad and clearly outlined his team’s immediate tasks in tackling the opposition.He said: “We shouldn’t worry about what they will do to us. What we should worry about is how we are going to handle them and control that. We know the players and should work on their strengths and weaknesses.”Jayawardene added the biggest limitation his team had was trying to worry about things ahead of time. “For instance, in England you will start talking about the ball moving and all that jazz. We shouldn’t worry about that. We haven’t even gone to England yet. In England you have some of the best batting wickets, which I have batted on, Lord’s for instance and Nottingham where the third test is scheduled to be played.”It’s all about how you go there and adjust and how you apply yourself. It is as simple as that. I think we did that very well in Australia and proved that we can handle pace, bounce and movement. It’s all in us, how you believe in your capabilities. It’s all up here.”Reflecting on his first tour to England in 1998, Jayawardene said, “My first tour of England taught me a lot. I had the opportunity to play in every game and learnt a lot in English conditions. Even though you are set when you are on 60 you can still get a good ball and get out. The first couple of matches were tough for me but luckily I had a lot of experienced guys to advice me. I learnt quickly and it helped me a lot especially to adjust myself for the next tour, which was in 2002.”Jayawardene said the English experience of Tom Moody, Sri Lanka’s Australian-born coach who played and coached Worcestershire for 15 years, and Trevor Penney, the Zimbabwean-born assistant coach who played 14 seasons for Warwickshire, would prove invaluable to his team. Both coaches went ahead of the team and are in England at the moment.He also revealed that Sri Lanka had not been practising ahead of the start of the tour. “There was no point, because the conditions are going to be totally different in England. So we used the time to give the players some rest. We have only undergone physical training to freshen ourselves after a hectic season.”Squad – Mahela Jayawardene (capt), Kumar Sangakkara (vice-capt), Upul Tharanga, Michael Vandort, Jehan Mubarak, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Thilan Samaraweera, Chamara Kapugedera, Prasanna Jayawardene, Chaminda Vaas, Nuwan Zoysa, Farveez Maharoof, Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Kulasekera, Muttiah Muralitharan, Malinga Bandara.

ScorecardShannan Stewart and Michael Papps guided Canterbury to a thumping nine-wicket win against Wellington in their Twenty20 match at Christchurch. Both made 66 – although Stewart’s was unbeaten – as Canterbury chased down the required 170 with a minimum of fuss.Neal Parlane piloted Wellington with 63, sharing a second-wicket stand of 71 with Chris Nevin. Stu Mills took charge after Parlane was dismissed in the 17th over, as his unbeaten 37 lifted them to 169. Stewart and Papps made easy work of the target with an opening stand of 136. Captain Chris Harris and Stewart guided the team home with two overs to spare.
ScorecardNathan McCullum’s allround performance steered Otago to a 14-run win over Auckland in their Twenty20 match at Eden Park. McCullum’s late-innings 20 lifted Otago to a competitive 181, but his contribution in the field was more crucial, picking up two wickets and affecting three run-outs.Richard Jones, the Auckland captain, was the only batsman to carry on after getting a start, but the steady fall of wickets increased the pressure and consequently the asking rate. Two early run-outs, courtesy of McCullum, reduced Auckland to 42 for 4. Jones and Dave Houpapa led the recovery adding a quick 55 in just over five overs. However, the rate slackened after Houpapa was dismissed. Mayo Pasupathi made a breezy 28 off 14 balls but both him and Jones were dismissed in the final over to McCullum. Jones top-scored with 75 off 57 balls with eight fours and a six.Earlier, Otago were boosted by contributions by Chris Gaffaney and and Gareth Hopkins, who made 43 and 47 respectively. Opener Gaffaney got the team off to a good start, and once he was dismissed, Hopkins and Greg Todd added 56 for the fourth wicket to lay the platform for a good score.

Peter Willey, the chairman of the umpires’ association, has admitted he is pleased to see Darrell Hair restored to the ICC’s elite panel. Hair was removed from the elite panel in the aftermath of The Oval Test in 2006 but the ICC have now welcomed him back into the fold.”I think everyone felt for Darrell as an umpire really,” he said. “He did what he thought was right. He wasn’t backed up and he paid the price. I am glad he has come back, I hope he does well and has a long future as a Test umpire. I’ve always found him an honest man and a good umpire. He is a strong umpire. Some people don’t like that.”Willey, a former England batsman who went on to umpire in 25 Tests, also defended umpires in general, adding that TV replays were putting them under increasing pressure.”When I finished, all this technology was just coming in and you’ve got the added pressure of, every time you go in the middle, of everything being dissected in super slow-motion. People forget you’ve got a split-second to give an honest decision.”If the technology that they use on the TV is 100% accurate, I would say use the TV. But I don’t think it is 100% accurate. There are loads of things they can’t pick up. I don’t agree with Hawkeye. I don’t think it gives a very honest description of where the ball pitches or is going. On certain pitches, you pitch the ball in the same spot and one delivery will go up and one will go down so, how they can predict where the ball will go, I just don’t know.”Then there is the case of bat-pad appeals. They tried it out a competition in South Africa a few years ago. Batsmen were asked to give an honest opinion on six bat-pad catches and every time the TV got it wrong. It is very difficult, even in slow motion, to decide whether the ball has hit the bat or not.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

Stuart Matsikenyeri marked his return to international cricket since March2005 with the innings of his career and Elton Chigumbura defied the oddsto help Zimbabwe overhaul Bangladesh’s 247 and clinch a thriller at Hararein stunning style. Matsikenyeri’s 89 in a record sixth-wicket stand of 114with Chigumbura, whose reenactment of was a classact, systematically broke down the Bangladeshis and resurrected the hostsfrom 50 for 4 to a two-wicket victory.When Chigumbura pinched a single to keep strike for the final over, andthen effortlessly heaved Shahadat Hossain over midwicket for four to sendthe devoted fans at the Harare Sports Club into rapturous applause,Zimbabwe had taken the first step towards redeeming themselves from aturbulent past season.The sight of Chigumbura, draped in the national flag and engulfed by a seaof school children, was heartening. Given that this was an inexperiencedZimbabwean side, with an average age of a classroom lot out of the , the win would have been a shot of adrenalin, valium,and Prozac all in one.Instead of inviting self destruct, like Zimbabwe have so often,Matsikenyeri and Chighumbura grabbed the innings by the reins in what willbe remembered as a great win. To highlight the magnitude of the duo’scontributions, we must rewind to the fact that the innings had started offrather pedestrian-like. Having been rocked by four strikes from MashrafeMortaza and Hossain, Bangladesh’s new ball pairing, Zimbabwelooked down and out. A 51-run stand for the fifth wicket between BrendanTaylor and Matsikenyeri, in good time, was undone by Taylor’s misjudgment.The introduction of Abdur Razzak and Mohammad Rafique, both left-armspinners, encouraged the batsmen to use their feet and try to score downthe ground. When Rafique gave it some air, the aggressive Taylorheaved him down to cow corner but was bowled in a repeat attempt. Deeptrouble, you would think…Not a chance. At least not yet. With the pressure clearly rising,Matsikenyeri and Chigumbura seemed to have realised and reassessed thesituation. Singles come at a good clip and bothbatsmen refrained from indiscretion. Rafique and Razzak were watchedcarefully, while Alok Kapali’s legspin was taken for runs. Once theyfigured out Rafique, Matsikenyeri and Chigumbura steadily brought the runrate down. Their running between the wickets, it must be said, waselectric and belied the frailty of this inexperienced side. Matsikenyerireached his fifty with a fine lofted shot down the ground and followedthat up with a crashing extra cover drive for four more. To rub it in,Chigumbura ran Rafique cheekily down to third man and then got anotherboundary when he slashed Kapali to the same region.More than the amount of runs the two put on, it was the manner in whichthey did so. The Matsikenyeri-Chigumbura association, worth its weight ingrain, had Bangladesh sweating and later fatigued. Matsikenyeri, whoseprevious best was 73, took the leading role, and pushed by Chigumbura,unleashed some fine strokes all round the pitch. Shoulders drooped, Razzakbegan to vent his frustration, and Matsikenyeri was given the easiest oflet-offs on 61 when his lofted shot to wide long-off was dropped by JavedOmar. He reacted with a neat paddle sweep for four off Razzak and to showthat he was definitely to be taken seriousy, heaved the next ball over themidwicket rope.However, a cruel twist was thrown in with victory,and Matsikenyeri’s hundred, in sight. A sharp blow to the toe from aMortaza yorker had Matsikenyeri on his back and receiving treatment, andcramped by the pain, he could only loft Shahadat to Mortaza at long-off inthe next over. But Chigumbara, who stroked Mortaza for a stunning loftedsix and straight four in the 47th over, kept his cool to see Zimbabwethrough with five deliveries to spare. Prosper Utseya, in his first matchas captain, proved his fallibility by missing a heave at Mortaza andlosing his stumps in the penultimate over, and Ryan Higgings fell lbw thenext ball to leave all at the ground reaching for their respirators. ButChigumbura was not about to let matters slip away.Bangladesh’s own innings had been a fidgety one. Tawanda Mupariwa’s twinstrikes first up had Bangladesh in all kinds of bother, but ShahriarNafees’s patient 78 and a quickfire 39 from Rafique at the death gave thema healthy total to defend. Nafees was a steady force in two fifty-plusstands with Mohammad Ashraful (25) and Habibul Bashar (40), and hiseffort, though sluggish, ensured Bangladesh did not succumb to the earlypressure from Mupariwa. Following a middle order hash, Bangladesh wereindebted to Rafique’s effective use of the long handle. He picked up sixesover deep fine leg and long-off and pierced the gaps repeatedly tofrustrate the fielders and take the gloss off a clinical bowling effort.Zimbabwe’s bowling was tidy, if unspectacular, and suggested early on that thisside will push Bangladesh in the series. On a pitch which had a hint ofmoisture, Zimbabwe’s new-ball pairing of Ed Rainsford and Mupariwa turnedin a fine initial display. There was enough pace to check the flashydrives that we have become accustomed to from Bangladesh, and the rightamount of late movement to keep the slip fielders licking their lips. Thetennis-ball bounce also proved suitable to the swing that Mupariwaachieved, while the lift that Rainsford got had the batsmen in two minds.Mupariwa’s celebratory fist pumping, dreadlocks and all, after nabbingJaved and Aftab Ahmed up the order, summed up the feisty attitude of theZimbabweans.His two further strikes at crucial times in the inningsensured Bangladesh did not run away to a high total. Rainsford, whoimpressed in the West Indies earlier this year, returned to bowl Nafeesneck and crop at the death and was far more impressive at the end. Utseyasent down his ten overs on the trot for an economical 35 runs, while thesupport staff – Rinke, whose slow medium pace was quite harmless, RyanHiggins, Masakadza and Matsikenyeri – did well to not haemorrhage runs.Ultimately, it made all the difference.How they were outBangladesh
Javed Omar c Taylor b Mupariwa 8 (15 for 1)
Aftab Ahmed c Taylor b Mupariwa 0 (16 for 2)
Mohammad Ashraful c Higgins b Masakadza 25 (75 for 3)
Habibul Bashar c Chibhabha b Mupariwa 40 (146 for 4)
Alok Kapali st Taylor b Masakadza 23 (185 for 5)
Shahriar Nafees b Rainsford 78 (188 for 6)
Mohammad Rafique b Mupariwa (238 for 7)
Zimbabwe
Chamu Chibhabha c Javed b Mashrafe 1 (7 for 1)
Piet Rinke c Mashud b Mortaza 10 (38 for 2)
Hamilton Masakadza c Ashraful b Shahadat 7 (50 for 3)
Vusi Sibanda b Shahadat 22 (50 for 4)
Brendan Taylor b Rafique 25 (101 for 5)
Stuart Matsikenyeri c Mortaza b Shahadat 88 (214 for 5)
Prosper Utseya b Mortaza 8 (242 for 7)
Ryan Higgins lbw b Mortaza 0 (242 for 8)

Former KCA chairman Sharad Ghai has told The Nation that Cricket Kenya is in breach of an agreement with the ICC by not holding elections.The annual elections should have been held in June 2007 but the repeated failure of the Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association to amend its own constitution and hold its own elections has led to the delay. The NPCA is Kenya’s largest constituent body and yet it has failed to produce accounts or hold annual meetings for more than three years. CK has deemed it wrong to hold elections with the NPCA is such a mess and with its executive being so unrepresentative and has been attempting to get the situation resolved. It has , however, been faced with endless stalling tactics by the embattled executive.Ghai told The Nation: “CK should not use the delay in the amendments of the Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association’s constitution as an excuse for delaying the elections because they would not affect the number of delegates allocated to the province.”However, what this overlooks is that the number of NPCA delegates is not the issue. It is the manner in which those delegates are selected that is a problem. A number of those that sit on the NPCA executive are not accredited delegates of any club. Yet they can attend meetings, purport to stand again and again for a post within NPCA and also vote for themselves to get onto the CK executive.Furthermore, in 2005, in his last weeks as chairman of the KCA, Ghai actually wrote to the NPCA reminding them that they had to call an AGM to amend the constitution and that was acknowledged by Salim Dhanji, the then NPCA chairman, who has since distanced himself from the current executive. That meeting has still to be held.Ghai’s comments will be read with incredulity by many stakeholders. He was a key member of the old Kenyan Cricket Association when it suspended the NPCA and replaced it with an unrepresentative body. For several years the KCA failed to hold elections and was almost utterly unaccountable. Ghai was forced from office after a year in which the players went on strike and Kenya’s sports minister sought to have the KCA disbanded. Eventually, the KCA was forced to hold elections after pressure from the Africa Cricket Association and the ICC.There has been concern that Ghai was attempting to get back into administration ever since he reappeared as a representative of Nairobi Gymkhana on the NPCA council last year. That The Nation, whose journalists gained a reputation of being sympathetic to Ghai while being critical of CK at any opportunity, are again giving him a platform will be seen as further evidence that a comeback is on the cards.Cricinfo has flagged the problems within the NPCA on many occasions and the executive, which remains in office despite widespread criticism from its own members, has engineered continual delays in holding its annual meeting which can force through amendments necessary to enable CK to move ahead.CK has shown immense patience as it has not wanted to interfere in what is in essence a local matter. But there are signs that patience is running out for the NPCA to gets its own house in order.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

An imposing century by Jacques Kallis gave South Africa the honours on the first day of the first Test after Graeme Smith had won the tossand elected to bat on a hot Karachi morning. They ended the day on 294 for 3, with Kallis unbeaten on 118.Starting cautiously and taking 14 deliveries to get off the mark, Kallis hit his stride soon with elegant drives square of the wicket.The slow pitch and hot weather made bowling difficult and anythingshort in length was ruthlessly cut and ended up penetrating a strongoff-side field. Dropped on 36 and 61, Kallis ensured an otherwise fluent innings playing majority of his strokes along the ground.He dominated the 170-run third wicket partnership with Hashim Amla,in terms of both strike and runs, and relieved the pressure when Amla got bogged down against the spinners. Kallis was not afraid to use his feet against the slower bowlers and scored at a quicker rate than normal, reaching 50 off91 balls and his hundred off 147 balls.The foundation for the innings, however, was laid by a confident opening stand of 87 between Smith and Herschelle Gibbs that punished some wayward bowling by Mohammad Asif and Umar Gul. Not getting any early movement off the pitch or in the air, the bowlerserred in line and length and allowed South Africa reach50 in the 12th over. Striving for the yorkers he delivered so successfully during theWorld Twenty20, Gul was frequently driven through extra cover and wasduly replaced by Danish Kaneria in the tenth over.The slowness of the pitch was apparent as Asif, trying to bowl short,was pulled by Gibbs to square leg on several occasions. Pakistan lacked energy and creativity in the field and Shoaib Malik,the captain, tried six bowlers before lunch, including debutantAbdur Rehman. It was, however, Mohammad Hafeez who got the firstbreakthrough as Smith went back to a straight ball and got hit on theback leg in front of off stump.Gibbs slashed at a wide Gul delivery after lunch and was caught at gully byHafeez but it was all Kallis and Amla from then on. Though the bowlers were able to swing and spin the older ball, aplay-and-miss was the best they could achieve on a deteriorating pitch. It was the new ball, taken in the 82nd over, that brought the wicket of Amla, who fell for a sedate 71. Beingovershadowed, and perhaps awed, by Kallis’ performance, and finding it difficult to get the spinners away, Amla dealtmostly in singles but dispatched Rehman into the sighstcreen after hehad managed to dry up the scoring.With Kallis unbeaten on 118 overnight, and not having scored adouble-century yet in his 107-Test career, a long day in the field lookson the cards for the home team while they rue the dropped catches and missed run-out opportunities.

Super 4s cricket kicks off in England this weekend and Rosalie Birch has been named as the new Sapphires captain following Laura Newton’s retirement.The Twenty20 Challenge will be held on Monday 28 May, with Sapphires taking on the Emeralds, captained by Alexia Walker. Nicki Shaw’s Diamonds, last year’s winners, will take on the Rubies, who are led by Gill Richards.Shaw is taking over temporary charge of the Diamonds while Charlotte Edwards recovers from knee surgery. Edwards’s knee flared up after the quadrangular series in India, but she hopes to be back playing by mid-July ahead of the New Zealand series in mid-August.The winners from these two games will then face each other in the Final, while the remaining two teams will have a third place play-off. The first round of matches starts at 11.30am, followed by the third place play-off and the Final at 3pm. All games will be played at Loughborough University.The league competition begins on the weekend of June 2-3, with further matches taking place on June 16 and 23 and over the weekend of July 7-8.Ebony Rainford-Brent, representing the Diamonds had this to say about the Super 4s; “It’s a great platform for players to showcase their talent. It is also an excellent way of preparing for international level, by facing the best in the country on a regular basis and to push yourself either individually or as a team. For me this is my first Super 4s season and I look forward to having the opportunity of playing a key role and producing some good performances.”

Changes are already being made to the West Indies cricket team prior to their tour of England in May, according to West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) president Ken Gordon.”You better believe that they have started already”, Gordon said when asked whether changes would be made to the team prior to the upcoming tour to England in the face of their dismal performance in the current World Cup tournament. He however declined to go into details.And, asked to respond to a call being made in the Express editorial for the resignation of the WICB, Gordon said: “Well, that is par for the course. I can only say that if newspapers feel that is the best judgment they can make, who am I to tell them not to make it. But it just goes to exemplify the kind of very poor judgment of which I am speaking.” He added, however, he would have “absolutely no hesitation in resigning, if I thought for one moment that it would assist the situation. He said that such a call “absolutely doesn’t demoralise me, and it doesn’t demoralise the board”.Gordon was fully in defence of the West Indies team and its captain Brian Lara, even while conceding that all was not well with the team and its performances in the current Cricket World Cup. In an interview at his hotel Suite in Grand Anse, it was a combative Gordon who hit back at critics of the team and its captain, including journalists and commentators in the regional media have been calling for Lara’s resignation.Nothing is wrong, Gordon said, with proper and full analysis of the team’s performances “but when you make that almost like an agenda item, this attack, attack attack, it is not in anybody’s best interest. Not at this time”. Saying there was going to be ample time for such full scale, hard hitting analysis at the end of the series, Gordon said the force of the sustained criticisms at this time had the effect of demoralising the players.He had not spoken with or seen the players in the previous two days, certainly not after their fourth straight defeat to South Africa at the National Stadium on Tuesday. But, he said it was “almost unnatural that it would not have some kind of effect,” referring to what he described as the potentially demoralising commentary being carried on in parts of the regional media.”It is palpably unfair to be criticising the team and its captain in the middle of a series like this, he said. There was going to be the time when “no holds should be barred in the analysis that is necessary. But for the moment, he said what was required was an exercise of “some care, judgment and timing.”Calls for Lara’s resignation, he said, were premature and unjustified. “Let’s face it. He was put there by the management, and I would be prepared to take whatever responsibility for it,when the time comes,” he said, disputing the basis on which those calls were being made at the moment. Nothing fundamental about what Lara brings to the game had changed since he was reappointed captain, he added.Granting that Lara had been committing “errors of judgment” during the series up this point, Gordon said, however he was going to make no criticism of those decisions at this time. “Do you want to see them get out for 50 runs in a game?” he asked rhetorically, in answer to a question that on the basis of the loss to South Africa the West Indies was not effectively out of the series. “They have to continue to play the best game they can,” he said, adding that for too long now West Indies cricket had been propelled on the basis of raw talent and not much else. There was widespread hope across the region for the West Indies to be doing better than it is in this series and that was understandable, Gordon said.

But, he said, that was largely unrealistic, since “two years ago, there was not even that hope. The team was at the very bottom of the heap.” Some “sparks” were ignited in the interim to create that hope, But it ought to have been accepted that the team has not been enjoying its best days. “We all know that on its best day this team can beat anybody, but the reality is that the team is not enjoying its best days. We have come from very far. We had hoped to get back closer to the top but it has not happened,” he said.Reflecting on the time when the West Indies prevailed principally on the basis of that talent, he said the game had changed significantly. It changed, he said, “when the Australians went to the drawing board and decided to find away to beat these talented guys.” They came up with a formula, he said, and it was copied, “by the Indians, by England, by everybody except the West Indies.”We continue to send extraordinarily talented youngsters out there almost as sacrificial lambs,” he said, adding that “there is absolutely no substitute for the kinds of development that comes with the academies” and the other elements which ought to go into the production of a truly professional unit.