da doce： It’s easier to remove Lord Nelson’s statue from Heroes Square than tocaptain the West Indies team at the moment
Andi Thornhill16-May-2001It’s easier to remove Lord Nelson’s statue from Heroes Square than tocaptain the West Indies team at the moment.Skipper Carl Hooper should have known this better than anybody elsebecause he said, while he was in exile, that personnel changes wouldnot solve all the problems in West Indies cricket for they are toomany and too diversed.I don’t see how he could think that things would have changed in hisshort stint at the helm. That would have taken a Jesus-like miraclesince the administrative structure is the same and there is still thenucleus of the team that he inherited.Yet some of Hooper’s recent behaviour suggests that he anticipatedthere would have been an immediate overhaul in their attitude andapplication to playing and that the results would be different.How else could you put into context his rash statement that even ifSteve Waugh was captain the team still would not win? This is clearlythe reaction of a man who is beginning to feel the pressure of leadinga team that is continuing to perform way below par most of the time.However, it is obvious that a chronic case of foot-in-mouth diseasewill do more to hurt his cause than help it because when you speakwith a loose tongue you merely serve to undermine the confidence ofyour team and then it will be hard to ask them to lift theirperformance once they get in the middle.After all, they have feelings and while I won’t want to suggest thatthey will under-perform deliberately to embarrass the skipper, it isquite possible that they will be less inclined to give 100 per centfor a man who seeks to put them down in public than if he was moresympathetic to their failings.Hooper might be frustrated but he must take into account that with thesquad already getting a tongue lashing from millions of disappointedand angry supporters they need all the internal support they can getto stay grounded else the boat would sink even in shallow waters.Perhaps only Brian Lara and himself will qualify for this exclusiveleague of being world-class, therefore reticence and discretionarylanguage must be the order of the day in evaluating the merits of theside especially, I emphasise, when it comes to making publicpronouncements.Obviously the players will still be annoyed but I think they will takeit a lot better if Hooper reserves some of his untimely comments forthe dressing room and not at the table of a Press conference.Usually, they can’t wait to pounce on the wounded, why give them moreammunition than they need to finish the job? The West Indiescricketers can ill afford such a situation where they are alreadycoming out second best by a long, long way.This will be a long tedious period of transition and it will requireplenty of patience from all the stakeholders in West Indies cricket.We must present a united front to the world as we bid to reclaim theglory days.In the short-term and even the long-term people like Hooper will needto be giving both the players and the genuine supporters a greatermeasure of reassurance that all is not lost and that with time, withthe right methods and right attitudes in place we can resurface as amajor force in the world game.Hooper needs to ponder on these things before he puts his foot in hismouth again. He does not need to make his job any harder than italready is.