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Garner looking to bring back values of past teams

11/6/2009

By Corey Greaves

“IF you are only going to come to the party and not going to participate in the party, then I would say you are in the wrong sport.”

Those were the sentiments of Manager of the West Indies team, Joel Garner, who believes that making the West Indies team is only a stepping stone.

“You don’t just want to make the team ... you have to keep performing.

“Right now, it is like everybody is just happy to make the team and judging from the reports that came out of Guyana with how some of our players are behaving, it says that we have our job cut out for us.

“It is not a foregone conclusion, where the case is because you are in the squad, that is it. I think that we have to make it competitive and if it is competitive, then we will get results that will make us strong again and take us back to near the top of world cricket if not to the top,” he stated.

As he recalled the teams from the ’70s and ’80s, Garner said that everyone on the team was not extremely talented, but “we were successful because we worked hard and we took the time out to do the things to bring the cricket up”.

It is to this end that Garner will be looking at bringing some of those values back into the team.

Looking at the world scene, he told those on hand that “in world cricket there is some division, where you have four or five teams who are at the top and they want to go it alone. They want to play more cricket between themselves because they now are the bargaining power”.

“We have to understand that we have to get from the position at number eight to be in those top four and be a force to reckon with in world cricket.

“The good thing with exposing the other team when they were on strike, is that it shows some degree of hard work and discipline that they too can make it to the top,” the manager said.

Garner believes that discipline and not the one where you fine the players, but self-discipline is an area the players have to work on.

“I think that players have to understand that they are professional cricketers and have to look after themselves; they have to be prepared to work that little bit extra to get where they want to go.”

He mentioned that the team is always under prepared, but has a solution to this problem.

“I think the time has come where a month at a time you come together in an island and you start your preparation for the whole year,” Garner noted, adding: “I feel that we have players who are contracted with the WICB (West Indies Cricket Board) and the number has now been increased to about 30 or 40.

“I don’t think you can just pick people up, the time they are going to go on tour two or three weeks before. It is not the ideal way to do it, but what I am saying is that now we are going forward, there have to be a lot of changes.

“What they have to look at in the total picture is to see how we keep our players fit on an all-round basis.

“If you have 30 or 40 players under contract and 15 are away on tour, then those other 25 players must come together and there must be coaches in the region who you can call on to do a job. Get them to come to a place and work on improving their skills, strength, stamina and overall fitness ... I think that is the way to go forward.”

Indices

as of close 9/15/2009


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