Entering the Champions Trophy, West Indies were accused of devaluing the tournament; on the contrary, in their first match against Pakistan they made something of it

Osman Samiuddin at the Wanderers23-Sep-2009It cannot be an easy time to be a West Indies cricketer of any kind. Thoseon strike are not doing what they are meant to be doing. Those in SouthAfrica are not being credited for doing what they are doing.Floyd Reifer’s men came into the tournament having been beaten byBangladesh. Their presence here was said by many to devalue the tournamentitself. And when their batting collapsed today, you could sense peoplewere waiting to pounce.It’s a funny charge that, devaluation, given that of the many things theChampions Trophy has been accused of in the past, adding value to crickethas rarely been one of them. Minnows have played before and been greatlyembarrassed too. And it’s hardly as if the West Indians not of Reifer havegallivanted around the globe over the last many years adding value to thegame.It is too harsh, too righteous, too ignorant of a devilishly entangledissue and too disrespectful of those who are here. They are plainly a weakside and are likely to be beaten in all three games. But they did notdevalue their match against Pakistan. They almost made something of it,added whatever value can be added to a match in which a target of 134 hasbeen set. Their top order was poor, but it’s not as if Pakistan’s battedlike kings. And if the pitch remains the same then other sides will alsostruggle with the grass.They flashed and dashed around the field later with particular vim andgusto, a world away from the lethargy that so often engulfs Chris Gayle’ssides. There were errors for sure, but the effort could not be questioned.Tino Best hared in wanting to break something, Darren Sammy and DavidBernard didn’t disgrace themselves and Gavin Tonge actually surpassedhimself.So fluid and rhythmic was Tonge that you believed him when he said aftertaking a career-best 4 for 25 that he could’ve bowled 20 overs straight. “Iwas feeling good today, good to bowl 20 overs straight because it was mytype of pitch and I was feeling it good,” Tonge said. “Coming in the rhythmwas perfect.”They were the first four ODI wickets of his career and it felt as if hedid his spell a little disservice by talking of the pitch as if it were alove he had spent his entire life chasing after. “That was a very goodtrack for fast bowling and cricket in general,” he said. “Having seen thePakistan bowlers earlier in the day there was a little bit of nip in itand a fair bit of carry, but it was a very, very good pitch for fastbowling.”Bowlers are rarely so glowing about the merits of a pitch, especiallyafter they have done so well on it. The natural urge is to play up yourown skills and play down the surface’s assistance. Not so Tonge. “We’regoing to be playing on the same pitch again,” he said, in anticipation ofa second date. “Hopefully it will be behaving the same, so I will put theball on the spot and let the pitch do the same. Hopefully I’ll be doingthe same thing again.”Sure there was movement, but he did all that smart bowlers do on suchsurfaces, hitting the right areas and all that. The ball moved about,Pakistan’s batsmen froze as they often do on such pitches and chasing suchtotals and it was all quite competitive. A slightly bigger target, aMohammad Yousuf chance held onto early and who knows; Tonge didn’t thinkthe Yousuf drop made much of a difference in any case.Inevitably, the issue of devaluation was skirted around. Questions wereasked about second strings and future selections when and if the otherscome back, a little unfair on a man who has just recorded a career-bestagainst serious opposition in a serious tournament, quite likely thebiggest match of his career. “I definitely think so [forced a few peopleto take us seriously]. I wouldn’t say it is a second string team becauseeach guy has performed to be here and we are here to compete.” The future,he said reasonably, would be left to the selectors.Other teams and batsmen in the group may well be more ruthless with them,however, so the issue is unlikely to go away. Not that Tonge seemedworried, even expressing disappointment at not being able to bowl toYuvraj Singh. “I was looking forward to playing against him, reallylooking forward to it.”