da esoccer bet： Here is a fact
da imperador bet： Colin Croft17-Nov-2000Here is a fact. Victoria is at the bottom of the Pura Cup four-day competition.With the way they played on the first day against the West Indies, on a pitchwhich was somewhat slow, but did help the faster bowlers earlier on, one willhave to wonder where the West Indies is in the swing of things at this level.They certainly did not look like the Test team they will be come next week, evenwith the fact that the XI they put out for this four-day game is almost the Testteam itself.Maybe the final score itself was a misleading fact. That the West Indies made167 at all was due almost entirely to the contributions of three batsmen,Sherwin Campbell, who made 29 before he slashed wildly and was caught at thewicket; Ridley Jacobs, who made 28 before he ran himself out, a not uncommon occurrence; and Mahendra Nagamootoo, who after making a pummeling 48, tried abit too hard for his 50 and was well caught by Test selectee Colin Miller,running back at mid-wicket. Simple mathematics suggests that between them,Campbell, Jacobs and Nagamootoo managed 105 runs. That means that the otherbatsmen, including Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Jimmy Adams, andRamnaresh Sarwan, could only manage 62 runs. It was simply a continuing storyof poor batsmanship, even giving some credit to the Bush Rangers’ bowlers.What is damning about this is that the same recklessness that ensued when theWest Indies had been bowled out for 132 at Perth last week was again veryevident at the MCG. Already it has been suggested that the discipline necessaryto play well here in Australia is missing. Unfortunately for the West Indies,there is not much time left to correct such faults. Next week this time, the 1st Test at Brisbane would have already been under way. The more things change,the more they remain the same.”We really wanted to bat out the first day”, suggested Sherwin Campbell, theteam’s vice captain. “Being the opening batsman for any Test team brings muchpressure. It is very important, in my case both as an opener and the vicecaptain, that I stay there (at the crease) as long as possible and then allowthe team to gather themselves around me. Maybe both my form and my luck havebeen good for the two centuries I have had so far, but really, it comes down tospending as much time at the crease as is possible.”While it took Campbell all of 160 minutes to get to his 29 from 126 deliveries,so intent he was on survival, the entire West Indies innings only lasted justover twice Campbell’s stay at the crease, 336 minutes. This is only anotherindicator that no-one else, not even the ultra-aggressive Nagamootoo, seemedintent on playing out time, as such.Matthew Inness, the lively left handed opening bowler for Victoria, looked muchbetter than his more illustrious team-mates, Damien Fleming and Colin Miller,the former just coming back from a broken finger, the latter already selectedfor Test No. 1, next week. Inness worked hard, bowled straight at the batsmenand the stumps, and was aided and abetted by some terrible batting. He clearlyjustified his captain, Darren Berry’s decision to field first. Berry himselftook five catches to help his bowlers, none more spectacular than the one heheld, diving to his left, low down, to dismiss the dangerous, focussed andpromising Brian Lara, from Miller’s bowling.Already it is being suggested everywhere that all of the Test matches thisAustralian summer would finish with at least a day to spare, with the WestIndies losing all of them. If the batting, especially that of Brian Lara, ShivChanderpaul, Jimmy Adams and Campbell himself, do not come through, the WestIndies will surely struggle much. Sarwan, incidentally, seemed to have lost his”bounce.” He had better find it quickly.Miller and Fleming bowled creditably, with Miller swinging the ball well when heoperated as a fast bowler, but Inniss deserved his best figures ever, beatinghis 6-70, against New South Wales, achieved earlier this year.The only bright spot for the West Indies was Nagamootoo. His aggressionsuggests that he could well be selected in the Test for his batting, even thoughhe is supposedly, primarily, a leg-spinner. This West Indies cricket team needsevery run it could get, from anyone willing to provide it. With Wavell Hindsand Sarwan fighting for that final middle order position, Nagamootoo could findhimself batting ahead of Ridley Jacobs even.Sherwin Campbell also suggested that he was disappointed. “Since the Test matchis the next game, we certainly are looking to get some good scores here at theMCG. Hopefully, the batters would get a second hit in the 2nd innings, andmaybe we will do better. We definitely need some more runs and much moreconfidence going into the Test. Test match cricket means that we will have toup our game somewhat. We know that we have not batted well here. Our shotselection was poor. We must focus on batting longer. While our batters mightbe overall confident, we are not capitalizing on the starts we have beengetting. We can always say that one should learn from mistakes, but the focusand concentration must be there daily.”If the showing on Day 1 of this last game before the historic 1st Test match isto go by, the West Indies has a lot of work to do in a few days before Test No.1. It could be very messy come next week.
