Why West Indies greats feel their team can't beat India

West Indian cricket is in a mess, and the ongoing Test series against India has only served to expose this unkind truth - unkind for not only the people of the Caribbean, but the fans of Caribbean cricket the world over.

For those having grown up on a fare of Clive Lloyds, Michael Holdings, Vivian Richards and the Brian Laras, it is painful to watch such capitulation by a West Indies team as in the current series.

For all of the first Test and most of the second, it looked like there was only one team playing, and that was India, though Roston Chase fighting century and useful contributions by Blackwood, Dowrich and Jason Holder with the bat put some balm on the Caribbeans' wounds?

But did actually? Not quite, feel some of the legends of West Indian cricket, who in their prime struck fear in the hearts of the opposition.

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As West Indies somehow managed a draw at Jamaica, Gordon Greenidge, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Desmond Haynes and Jeff Dujon get together over a drink and go on a walk down memory lane, reliving the heydays of West Indian cricket, and also discuss the reasons for its decline.

Holding: Who would have thought we would be celebrating West Indies drawing a Test match? West Indies is in a bad, bad way, I tell you.

Haynes: Yeah man, the Indians are pummelling us. It's so bad. Get back onto the pitch now Mikey. Our bowlers are too soft. (Michael Holding gives a wry smile to Haynes' suggestion.)

Roberts: Desmond has a point though. Remember Sabina Park in 1976? The Indian dressing room looked like a hospital at the end of the match. Mikey, you played that match. You were brutal, man. Those bouncers were lethal.

Holding: Yes, the Indians had it tough in that match. Poor guys, they declared only six wickets down in the first innings, and in the second innings they again declared, this time five wickets down and just 12 runs ahead.

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Roberts: But they had started well, didn't they?

Holding: They did, yes. After day one, they were 170-something for one, if I remember correctly. Then on day two, (Anshuman) Gaekwad got hit. Poor guy. Had to spend two nights in hospital. Then another of their players (Brijesh Patel) got hurt. (Gundappa) Vishwanath also fractured his finger.

Roberts: And none of those three played any further part in the match.

Holding: That's true. And I thought the Indian captain protected the lower order from us.

Dujon: I don't blame them if he did. Who would want to face Holding in such a mood. How many did you get Mikey in that match? Six, or seven?

Holding: Seven.

Roberts: Would have been more had the Indians not been in such hurry to declare their innings. (At this all of them have a hearty laugh.)

Greenidge: You made England cry too, didn't you, Mikey? You were very young at that time. In your early 20s?

Holding: Yes, I was 22. It was the fifth Test of the series at the Oval. I just ran in and bowled... bowled fast and full.

Greenidge: Yes, and before the series Tony Grieg (England captain) had said that they would make us grovel. That spurred us on.

Holding: Absolutely. I got 14 wickets in that match, but Viv (Vivian Richards) played a great hand. Almost scored a triple century. But Gordon, you were pretty devastating yourself. Both Desmond and you. And then we had Viv.

Haynes: Gordon's double century against England in 1984 was quite special. Imagine, we were set a target of 342 on the fifth day, and Gordon took us to victory almost single-handedly. And then that 226 against Australia at Barbados in 1991. Wow! It was the penultimate match of Gordon's Test career and that innings really cemented his place as a legend of the game.

Greenidge: Thanks Desmond. And let me tell you that I have always enjoyed batting with you.

Roberts: You guys were one of the best opening pairs of all time, if not THE best.

Greenidge: Hey, don't forget what Malcolm (Marshall) did to Mike Gatting in 1986. His bouncer struck the England batsman right on his nose and the ball went on to hit the stump. And when the ball was returned, a piece was Gatting's bone was still stuck on it.

Haynes: Oh, that was pretty nasty. And the English were shaking after that. Was a one-dayer, wasn't it?

Greenidge: Yes, and at Sabina Park too! We then won the Test series 5-0.

Dujon: Yes, those were the days. What a team we had in the '70s and '80s! Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Malcolm Marshall, and later Courtney Walsh and Curtley Ambrose with the ball. And what batsmen! Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Vivian Richards, Clive Lloyd, Alvin Kallicharran, Richie Richardson and later Brian Lara and Carl Hooper.

Roberts (to Dujon): And a wicketkeeper as good as you.

Dujon: And that is why it is so difficult to accept the position that West Indies cricket finds itself in today. Not simply the fact that the team has been losing so consistently, but the abject manner in which it is doing so is the saddest part.

Holding: To a large extent, it is of the West Indies Cricket Board's own doing. It is not that West Indies has suddenly become a poor Test team. But when your top stars play the Caribbean Premier League, instead of Test cricket and a second string side is made to play a full-strength top Test side, the result is anybody's guess.

The WICB's handling of the game has left a lot to be desired. Its rule of selecting players for Tests only on the basis of their availability for the domestic four-day competition makes no sense. That way players like Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard, who are global stars won't be able to play lucrative leagues like the IPL and Big Bash.

Add Gayle, Pollard, Johnson Charles, Llendl Simmons, Andre Russell and Sunil Narine to this team and it would be a formidable side, though the pace attack would still be a bit weak. West Indies should now really concentrate on producing quality pacers. I wish Jerome Taylor didn't retire from Tests.

Roberts: Also Dwayne Bravo.

Holding: Yes, poor guy. He has had it tough with the board. But surely, this player versus board feud has carried on for too long, and is killing West Indies cricket. What it has resulted in is that often we have not been able to field our best team in big competitions.

Roston Chase's hundred in the second Test against India was great, but I don't think this team has much of a chance in the series. In fact, I will be surprised if India doesn't win it 3-0.

(To this, all the others agreed, and as they drank their last drop, the conversation drew to a close. But all of them went away with a lingering sense of melancholy, having had to witness the glorious decline of the glorious team of their times.)

(This is completely a work of fiction, though the issues discussed are genuine.)