Sport

Windies wake-up call

THE current one-day series between the West Indies and Bangladesh is proving to be a wake-up call for the regional team and its supporters.

It was generally accepted that the Bangladeshis, who have not won a Test in over 25 tries, would have been easily overrun by the Caribbean team in the one-day games and the upcoming two-Test series.

That so far has not been the case. The West Indies escaped with a one-wicket victory in the opening one-dayer and although they won by a bigger margin in the second and third games, nobody in the Caribbean can be comfortable with the performance of the team.

Surprised

I did not expect Bangladesh to beat the West Indies in their own backyard but I am not surprised by the closeness of the first two games. The truth is the West Indies are now, like Bangladesh, a second tier Test and one-day aggregation and matches between the two will be close.

There is a hint in some of the comments made by acting skipper Ramnaresh Sarwan that the West Indies took Banglasdesh lightly in the first one-day game.

In comments made to Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) Sarwan said: "We never expected it to get down to a situation like on Saturday."

Sarwan and his men should learn from the first two one-dayers. Bangladesh, now coached by the very experienced and shrewd Australia, Dav Whatmore, can bring off a surprise or two against a team which is missing its captain and top batsman Brian Lara.

The visitors have been weak in their batting but have done fairly well in the field, taking some very good catches and featuring in two or three run outs. They can only get better so the West Indies had better watch out.

Despite the good showing of the Bangladeshis so far, however, they will be overwhelmed by the West Indies in the Tests. Concentrating for three or four days is much more difficult than playing around for 50 overs or less.

The more experienced West Indies with a batting line-up of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Dwayne Smith and captain Lara will punish the tourists in the field while pacemen Tino Best and Fidel Edwards will be too fiery for their batsmen.

Let's hope the bad weather will stay away and give the two bottom of the ladder teams a chance to have a good, long contest in the Tests.