A miracle?

So West Indies lose two in two days going down to the mighty Aussies and the New Zealanders as well.

While I'm barely resisting the urge to follow the Indian fans and burn the entire team in effigy lets just say I'm a little disappointed in their showing. Its one thing to lose its another thing to just not be competitive.

Against the Aussies we never really stayed in the match once we started batting, and I watched as our required run rate climbed and climbed and climbed without any response on our part. At some point we should have made a go at it and hit out. If you're going to go out at least go down swinging I say. Playing timid does not win one day matches. It was almost as if we gave up early and just opted for batting practice or is it that the Aussies are just that good that resistance is futile.

Against the New Zealanders batting first we never really pushed the run rate either. Some players got starts but never really continued on to take those 20s to 40s or convert those 30s and 40s to 50s and 80s and beyond. Then to add to it all we were bowled out for under 180 after having replaced a strike bowler with a genuine batsman for this game. How embarrassing! How do 9 batsmen get out for under 180? How do you expect a bowling squad one mainline bowler short to defend that score on a good wicket? Dwayne Smith is a decent enough medium pacer but do you really want him opening your bowling when you are defending 180?

Mind you the Lendl Simmonds (inexperienced batsman) for Jerome Taylor (opening bowler) switch just boggles me. I still cant see what the justification for that was. Does having 9 batsmen really help the West Indies? We've never been a team to have the batsmen after 6 and 7 contribute greatly to team score. OK occasionally a number 8 will score some runs but that's rare. I don't have the raw stats to back that up but memory says that you'd be hard pressed to find a game where anyone past #7 really got a 50 and put up a resistance.

We need our top 5 batsmen to score runs in order to put up decent scores and win. Bringing in a new batsman at number 8 is neither here nor there towards winning for the Windies. That's just how it always has been.

Then at the end of the game the Captain basically complained about the 15 member squad selected. Damn wave the white flag why don't we. It gets no better from here as we face both Sri Lanka and South Africa. Think I was right to rule the West Indies out of contention for the semis because to get there from here now its going to take a miracle.