West Indies should not be allowed to play Tests: Hughes

Australia legend Hughes believes the side touring Australia is a 'disgrace'

Former Australian Test captain Kim Hughes believes the present West Indies team touring Australia is a "disgrace".

Hughes, who led the Australian team to India in 1979-80, said yesterday in a newspaper interview: "I'm starting to agree with Greg Chappell. West Indies don't deserve to play Test cricket.

"They're an embarrassment to themselves. They've got a captain (Chris Gayle) who doesn't believe in Test cricket and his body language suggests he doesn't want to captain. They've got an administration that cannot provide facilities which are fit for Test cricket," Hughes said.

"Things are so poor there aren't even radio broadcasts going back to the West Indies.

"The demise has come in a relatively short period of time. That is sad for West Indies cricket and Test cricket".

Hughes is of the opinion the tourists should have been better prepared going into the Brisbane Test last week, in which they received an inning and 65-run thrashing.

The likely return of gifted batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan to the team for the second Test starting in Adelaide on Friday will certainly beef up the batting but the bowling, lacking fire power to begin with in the absence of Fidel Edwards who suffered an injury during the IPL, will be further emasculated without Jerome Taylor who broke down in the Gabba Test.

Hughes said: "I'm a passionate person about Test cricket and this was not a Test.

"It's just ridiculous. They should have played minimum two, preferably three first-class games so they could give their younger boys a chance of assimilation and preparation.

"It's not fair on sponsors and the public, who would be asking 'why did you accept this lot'?"

Hughes said the only highlights in the match for the West Indies were the century on debut by 19-year old opening batsman and the impressive bowling of young fast bowler Kemar Roach.

"They looked good but they didn't have much else," Hughes said. "I know Sarwan was out, but the West Indies have been a rabble for some years now."

Meanwhile, former West Indies Australian-born coach Geoff Dyson has revealed that the West Indians have created a culture of laziness.

No training

Following the West Indies defeat in the first Test, Dyson, who was apparently made a scapegoat in the wake of the senior players' industrial dispute with their Board, said some players simply didn't want to train.

"There are some cricketers in the group who unfortunately don't like taking direction from people at all, they feel they are above that," Dyson said.

"They are unqualified to make that call, but they still make that call. They are very relaxed in their approach to training. There are times their body language conveys that they are just not interested."

Fearing loss of revenue that would result, the West Indies Cricket Board is resisting the idea of having the different Caribbean nations compete in international cricket as individual nations. But Dyson, who coached the team for two years before being sacked, believes that would be the way to go.

"It's difficult getting the players together with the one single-minded goal," he said.

Difficult task
"This is indicative of the fact that they come from different nations. It is a challenge; you are trying to blend together guys from different backgrounds who have different slants on cricket and life in general.

It has been suggested that they break up the West Indies and have Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana compete as individual teams. They've been talking about creating a two-tier Test competition and at the moment, it looks unfortunate that the West Indies will fall into the second tier."

With their team faring as abysmally as it has been doing for the past two decades, interest in the game is fast declining in the islands, with soccer taking over as the pre-eminent sport.

For the first time since the advent of radio and television, Caribbean nations are not receiving live coverage of the current Test series against Australia and Tony Cozier, the doyen of West Indian commentators, has missed a Test series here for the first time in 25 years.

However, cricket remains the sport of first choice for the Indian communities. The Adelaide Test could possibly see as many as six cricketers of Indian origin with vice-captain and wicketkeeper Dinesh Ramdin, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Adrian Barath, Ravi Rampaul and Daren Ganga all staking a claim to wear the maroon West Indies cap.

Ramdin, Barath and Rampaul are products of a Roman Catholic high school, the Presentation College. Ganga is considered the most astute captain in the West Indies.

The ethnic contours of West Indies cricket are fast a' changing.