From: mcbean@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Subject: Sobers on batting
Date: 7 Oct 92 10:15:34 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

This article was taken from the Sunday Gleaner (a Jamaican daily) of 27
September.  The author is Tony Becca, it's sports editor.  Reprintted without
permission.


/* Sober's on batting */

Former WI captain Sir Garfield Sobers recently made some interesting
observations regarding the present state of the region's cricket, especially as
far as the art of batting is concerned.

According to the man rated not only the greatest allrounder of all time, but
one of the best batsmen ever, West Indies batsmanship has lost its brilliance,
with too much emphasis being placed on front foot play.   Too many batsmen
regardless of the conditions or the state of the pitch, pushing the front foot
forward and carrying a defensive bat with it -- sometimes behind it.

The Great One however, does not believe that the art is lost, for although,
based on performances, he appears to have little respect for some of those
regarded as the best in the region - some of those in the team to Australia, he
seems to have little doubt that there are players around with the necessary
talent.

He believes that part of the problem is with the selectors who continue to
select batsmen who have failed to produce while ignoring others.  In
questioning the selection of Phil Simmons, Carl Hooper and Gus Logie for
Australia, Sir Garfield went on to ask what has happened to players like
Clayton Lambert and Robert Haynes, and wondered why young batsmen such as
Roland Holder and Stuart Williams are not being given a chance to show what
they can do.

"Hooper, for example, is young", said Sobers, "and if he is that good he will
come again, and while Simmons was disappointing in England, Lambert who was
called up to toward the end of the series, did reasonably well in the one Test
he played; yet it seems as if he has been forgotten while Simmons is being
afforded so many opportunities.

"The selectors, it seems," continued Sobers, "must be keeping them in the team
in order to prove a point, no doubt hoping that they will eventually come good
and so justify their early opinion of them.  That cannot be right, and it is
certainly not fair to the other players."

Sobers is not alone in his observations, neither as they relate to the
technique of today's batsmen, or to the selectors.  For some time now, the
attitude of the region's batsmen, with the exception of the really great ones
such as Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge, has been the topic of discussion in
many quarters, especially those who remember the dazzling strokeplay not only
of Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes, Clyde Walcott, Sobers himself, Rohan Kanhai,
Basil Butcher, Seymour Nurse, Clive Lloyd, Roy Fredricks, Lawrence Rowe and
Alvin Kallicharan, but even of those who failed to make it to the top, many of
whom failed to achieve their ambition only because of the quality around in
those days.

There was a time when West Indian batsmanship was the glory of cricket the
world over, when the next in line were so good they would probably have walked
into a West Indies team today.  It is said that the greatness of sportsmen and
sportswomen can only, in most circumstances, be measured by their achievements
in their time, and that seems logical; but were he of the present generation a
batsmen like Neville Bonito would probably be a West Indies star.

The selectors cannot be blamed for all the ills of present day batsmanship, 
but Sobers has a point; if some batsmen are still selected after years of
mediocrity and others are not given a chance to show they have the mettle to
perform, if young players have no confidence in the selection process, then the
art of batting must suffer -- if only because they will not be motivated to
train hard and properly, if only because they will lose the confidence which
allows strokeplayers to parade their exciting gifts.

Cricket may not entirely be a batsman's game, but batting is certainly the
heart of cricket, the main attraction -- especially when batsmen of skill and
courage, batsmen who refuse to be dictaded to, are in action.
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket