NO ONE likes to see sportsmen, especially cricketers, continue to play when they are past their best and, rather than bow out gracefully, embarrass themselves with mediocre performances.
Timing is the art of perfection. Knowing when to quit when you are on top and making the correct judgement are always key.
Some West Indians from as far back as Seymour Nurse to Richie Richardson and Brian Lara may have cut short their career while still having a lot to offer.
Joel Garner, Michael Holding and Curtly Ambrose were shining examples of cricketers who timed their retirements perfectly. I felt Courtney Walsh went on too long as he sought to break Kapil Dev’s then world record for the most Test wickets and to reach the 500 mark.
Australia’s slump a few years ago before their recent resurgence followed almost simultaneous retirements of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer and Adam Gilchrist.
India’s three batting greats Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman were exposed by the Australian fast bowlers in their recent Test series “Down Under”. It is now left to be seen whether the Indian selectors will remain faithful to the triumvirate or turn to Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina to join Virat Kohli in the middle order.
Tendulkar continues to play, hoping for more personal glory, seeking that elusive 100th international century to the detriment of India’s cricket.
Here in Barbados, the national selectors embarrassed experienced opener Dale Richards by not playing him in a single game after naming him in the Caribbean T20 14-man squad and omitting him from the first-class trials squad.
Now, we must ask, why is 39-year-old Floyd Reifer still playing first-class cricket?
This situation of an ageing, and now under-achieving batsman at this level robbing a younger cricketer of a place in a developmental side should be brought to an end immediately.
And today I want to ask Reifer some soul-searching questions.
Is it because you are the coach of and play an influential role in the selection of the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) team, which I maintain should not be playing in the regional competitions despite its excellent showing last year?
Or is it because the officials of the CCC team and those responsible for team selection are too timid to tell you enough is enough as you are long past your best?
Could it be the payment you receive for your dual role as CCC’s coach/player?
Do you believe you are still batting better than the younger batsmen in the side and that you still remain an invaluable asset as a modest performer with the bat?
I know you still dominate Division One cricket and can remain playing at that level for probably another five years, but are you satisfied with your batting returns at the regional first-class level over the past two years, especially last year when you made 261 runs at a meagre average of 17.40?
Lest you forget, I will remind you that you made a solitary half-century from 15 innings in eight of CCC’s nine matches last year.
Were your batting returns of 24 and 3 versus Windwards; 18 and 55 versus Trinidad; 11 and 29 versus Leewards; 11 versus Jamaica in the preliminaries; 37 and 20 against Guyana; 19 and 7 versus Barbados; 23 and 0 versus the Windwards in the semi-finals and 4 and 0 in the final against Jamaica so great that you need to be in the middle to show and guide the younger players how to compile an innings?
Last year the CCC, through the efforts of spinners Ryan Austin and Kavesh Kantasingh and the all-round efforts of promising pair Carlos Brathwaite and Nkrumah Bonner, did remarkably well to top the points table and reach the final where they were humiliated in two days by Jamaica on a pitch which many knowledgeable observers reckoned was specially prepared to assist the bowlers.
Having seen the bounce and turn the spinners got from the first day of the first series 2012 match against Trinidad and Tobago which ended in three days, I believe the time has come for the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to get a pitch inspector to carry out an investigation on the substandard surfaces being offered at the 3Ws Oval.
While Reifer maintains a place in a CCC team which could only muster scores of 111 and 114 against the Trinis, a gifted player like Shamarh Brooks and many other young batsmen around the region have to watch from the sidelines.
It is really unfortunate that the captain of the West Indies High Performance Centre (HPC) team cannot play while nearly all the other graduates, with the exception of Andre Creary and Keron Cottoy, are playing for their territories.
By the way, I thought the WICB circulated a release to the regional media late last year announcing that the HPC would play in all future regional senior competitions. It is really encouraging that Jason Holder, who took five for spit in the final Barbados trial at the Pine Basin but couldn’t find a place in his national team, started the first-class season with a five-wicket haul against a T&T batting line-up that comprised West Indian players from number one to seven.
With all three matches finishing in three days, one wonders whether the authorities should continue to play four-day matches. It is still early days and one can only hope that the batsmen will buckle down and put some big totals on the board like Chris Gayle.
It’s also time Gayle let his bat do the tweeting, unless he intends to tweet that long-awaited apology, which not many people would believe he is serious about anyway. Instead of being a lion, he can be like the chicken he has called West Indies’ captain Darren Sammy, who some pundits believe should be exempted from constructive criticism.
