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 | | Friday, 18 January, 2002, 14:14 GMT Windies focus on fitness  Reon King's progress has been hampered by injuries The West Indies have been dogged by injuries in recent series. BBC Sport Online examines the reasons why and what is being done about it. When writing about Clive Lloyd's all-conquering West Indies side, former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley was in no doubt about one of the main reasons for their success. In his book 'A History of West Indies Cricket', Manley concluded that Lloyd's men had "an added level of physical fitness which sets them apart from other sides in cricket history". Many of the greats of Caribbean cricket possessed a natural elasticity and athleticism which players from other cricketing countries could not match. Gary Sobers had few, if any, equals with bat and ball, but the litheness of his movement was another important factor in helping him become the pre-eminent player of his era.
Moving ahead in time, the long-striding grace of Michael Holding's run-up, which resulted in some of the most hostile fast bowling ever seen on a cricket field, was an equally thrilling sight. Now, however, those golden days are a distant memory. The team has lost 20 of its last 25 Test matches on foreign soil and one of the main concerns of the West Indies Cricket Board is a long list of injuries which have disrupted the current team. Brian Lara's fractured elbow, suffered in a collision in Sri Lanka, was sheer bad luck, but prior to that he had taken more than a year to fully recover from a hamstring problem and had to miss last year's series in Zimbabwe. Policy initiative Several other players, including fast bowlers Reon King, Cameron Cuffy and Merv Dillon, have been troubled by injuries and the Board recently organised a two-day seminar to find ways of improving the overall fitness of the squad. WICB chief executive Gregory Shillingford said they would look at how the amount of cricket the team will have to play under the International Cricket Council's 10-year Test programme and how it would "impact on the players' health and fitness". He added: "We will then decide the level of preparation that will be necessary that will be necessary and try to come up with methods for medical preparation and testing, medical protocols, fitness programmes and testing, as well as the implementation of a Medical and Fitness Policy and Procedures Manual."
Former fast bowler Colin Croft, a member of Lloyd's team, believes that the problem has its roots in a lack of cricket in Caribbean primary schools. But he also believes the training regimes used by the current squad are inadequate. "I was a fitness-holic, so I was always ready to play," Croft told BBC Sport Online. Sarwan setback "Most of these guys now - and I blame this entirely on the fact that there's not too much school cricket in the Caribbean - start playing at 15, but their cricketing bodies are maybe 10 years old. "When they get another five or six years and are picked for the West Indies, they've only played five years of cricket. They haven't come through the rigours of toughening as you go along." He added: "Reon King turned up in Sri Lanka with a hernia. Now a hernia is not an overnight thing, it's not like a cold. How do you get to a full cricket tour with a hernia?"
The physical conditioning of Lloyd's team was overseen by Australian physio Dennis Waight. And the WICB are again looking to Australia by recruiting Ashleigh Byron and Tom Coyle to oversee a coaching workshop in Trtinidad in March. But player fitness remains at the top of the agenda with Guyanese batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan forced out of a trial match ahead of the forthcoming series against Pakistan in Sharjah because of a persistent back problem. "I think they are going in the right direction but very haphazardly. Most of these people they are calling in have been around the Caribbean for the last 20 years and nothing has happened. "What has happened with the fitness thing is part of our deterioration in our cricket generally. We're not taking it seriously enough," said Croft. | |
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