West Indies ‘disappointed’ with pitch despite winning

It appears the West Indies team and management are being slighty unfair when it comes to the assessment of the Kensington Oval pitch, which recently hosted thesecond test between the West Indies and Pakistan.

The victorious West Indies home side, captain Jason Holder, coach Stuart Law and fast bowler Shannon Gabriel were quoted by the media giving harsh criticism to a pitch on which they came away with the victory to level the series 1-1.
“Disappointed”, “poor pitch”, “should have been able to hold together for a lot longer”, “it wasn’t the pitch that we would have liked...” – all of these were comments levelled by the home side.

The pitch may not have been what they were expecting, but when has that benefitted the West Indies in recent years? As they have lost over and over on pitches which should have suited them more!

It came as a shock that on a surface which endured five days and the fact that they were victorious, that they seemed unhappy with what it produced – which ultimately was their series tying victory.

Taking a step back and looking at the game, it produced two centuries – one from either side of the dressing room; four half centuries, for a total of 1 054 runs, 44 wickets and a result which was reached on the fifth day.

The stats reveal that it was a close, competitive match, which had something for the batsmen and the bowlers should they have applied themselves.

The match was never out of reach of either team and despite the criticism that the track suited the visitors and their spin attack, it was the West Indies fast bowlers who did the damage.

Credit must be given to the West Indies captain, Holder, and his pace attack, because he could have easily turned to spin after a small fight back by the Pakistan batting order on a fifth day pitch, which may have caused the game to take another twist. Instead he kept faith in his pacers, Gabriel, Alzarri Joseph and himself; who all did the job with some disciplined bowling, defending a modest total. The West Indies bowling attack had given away 44 extras in the first innings but returned in the second innings to only give away a mere eight runs.

Though the victory may have been there, the West Indies still had to go out and take it, as it was in no way just gifted to them.

A quick look at the first Test held at Sabina Park for comparison, shows it produced 881 runs and seven half centuries with no batsman making a century on the pitch and two Pakistan bowlers registering a five-wicket haul, which resulted in the West Indies losing early on the fifth day by seven wickets. Thus it remains somewhat puzzling that on a pitch which went the distance and produced the runs and a result similar to their last Test match, the victorious side seems to be the upset ones...