Not Really A Cliche: Why Shai Is The Hope Of West Indies

Dev Tyagi

image-losgouwjShai Hope in action [X.com]

If anyone thinks that the West Indies cannot slip into a further mess than the one they’re already in, then let it be reminded- they can.  

Not only because cricket is a game of endless possibilities that aren’t kind to the one who doesn’t improve over time but the West Indies, still widely loved, won’t rise back to a state of betterment unless cohesive actions and strategies are implemented at the regional and national board’s level. 

How on earth did the two time ODI World Cup champions and home to not just Prince Lara, but Sir Viv and Sir Sobers fail to play in India will for times to come remind fans of the embarrassment they’ve become. 

And that’s been no sudden or random incident; technically speaking, the post-Brian Lara and Chanderpaul era has seen fewer green shoots in the Caribbean cricket than it has seen dark days. 

If anything- and there’s no need to be condescending ever- the elimination from the World Cup 2023 was perhaps a ticking time bomb that had to blast Caribbean cricket into a layer of despair quite simply because two years ago, circa January 2022, the West Indies lost a one day bi-lateral series to Ireland. 

The three game series, lest it is forgotten, was held in the Caribbean and under the leadership, rather the lack of it, of Kieron Pollard, who happens to be an achiever in the white ball format. Many back then called it the darkest day of West Indies cricket. 

Just that a darker time was about to come, which as fate would have it, arrived at the behest of a far less experienced Dutch team and in the most crucial build up the Windies’ 2023 World Cup ambitions: the Zimbabwe-bound World Cup qualifier game. 

It was a game where god only knows how Jason Holder, such a bright and experienced campaigner of the current West Indies side, bore the embarrassing figures of none for 30 in an appalling super over that saw Logan van Beek drill the final nail in the West Indies coffin. 

A day the cricket fan had mixed reactions to back then in mid-2023; a day that anyone who considers himself as a West Indies fan will never forget. 

But there was a man in that playing eleven who was perhaps as crestfallen and may still be to this very day as just any West Indies supporter. 

This man had to not only bear the brunt of the most horrible cricketing performance his team produced, but listen to the scorn of the critics that anyways have existed in multiples given the embarrassment the once mighty team has displayed in the recent times. 

image-losgse78Shai Hope has been the backbone of West Indies batting unit [X.com]

That’s whether you speak of the defeat to Ireland in 2022 ODI’s or being beaten fair and square in the 2022 T20 World Cup, when an inglorious exit even before the main games arrived saw the two time champions of the format exiting Down Under. 

Lucky then that he wasn’t the captain in the last edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. 

But that doesn’t mean that life’s been any easy for a certain Shai Diego Hope. In the game that confirmed they won’t travel to India for the ongoing World Cup, Shai Hope was no slouch with the bat; he made a focused 47. 

And previously, in the World Cup qualifiers campaign, he first hit a brilliant and timely 54 off 60 against the USA to revive the fledgeling fortunes of his team only to score knocks like 132 against Nepal, proving to be the backbone of the team that so often plays as if few around have one. 

Barring low outings against Sri Lanka and Scotland, Hope, who turns 30 today, kept showing his consistency courtesy knocks like 63 against Oman. 

But just imagine his plight, spare a second of your busy time spent appreciating the rest of the bigger names into caring about this hugely unsung West Indian diamond. 

What may have his thoughts been upon registering that his beloved Windies won’t play the World Cup in a format where they were once world beaters despite runs coming from his bat and rather handsomely so from the bat of his friend and former captain Nicholas Pooran? 

Could life get any crueler? In a day and where we constantly get free advice and with it come precious pearls of wisdom such as the most cliched line of them all- the captain must leave by an example- what more could Hope have done besides firing runs from his beat and keeping the wickets for the befallen called the West Indies? 

Surely make no mistake. Hope, Barbados’s national treasure and such a vital part of the contemporary firmament of West Indies batting, is not some batting god. 

There are clear areas in his game where he’s had to work doubly hard and full credit to his critics for pointing out the flaws. 

Let’s talk for instance about the strike rate. 

Yes, as the modern game continues to become a template of entertainment where, truth be told, the requirement on the part of the batters is to “entertain” even as holding fort may be ever so vital, Hope’s been hit below the belt for being “too slow.”

There’ve been “experts” in the form of former players who’ve waxed lyrical on the subject of his one day strike rate despite knowing well that in a team where few can actually play technically well and even fewer can handle spin as best as Hope does, it’s not a crime against humanity to bat with more restraint and caution. 

Not that on his own, Shai Hope has offered any revert, let alone his dissonance with the widely exaggerated view. 

Instead, being the man of action, not one who offers lip service, Hope, quite simply upped the ante of run scoring in 2023. 

And before we the Fab-four obsessed lovers of the game- not that any member of this elite clique is less deserving of the love that comes along- lose the plot any further, it’s important to reflect on Shai Hope and his 2023 white ball numbers in white-ball cricket. 

From 14 opportunities to bat, the right handed current captain of the West Indies scored 632 runs at an average of 63, lest it is forgotten, at a strike rate of 96. 

The very Shai Hope that has rather surprisingly failed to capitalise so far on the brilliant start to his Test career has been practising six hitting for the better part of 2023 and given the chances he got to bat this year. 

So enormously comfortable does he seem stepping outside the crease as of today that at times, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a spinner coming into bowl or a medium pacer. 

We saw that in the way he approached his game against Shamsi in the one dayers in South Africa or the sublime footwork against Gerald Coetzee and later, Sikandar Raza and Richard Nagarava in the WC qualifier games in Zimbabwe. 

Even in the loss suffered at the hands of Zimbabwe, Hope seemingly had it in control, as he scored a vital 30 that should have ideally been a bigger score. But that’s now how cricket works. It’s not as per our desires. 

What’s far important first and foremost is the search for improvement. 

And going by that logic, Hope’s worked it out it seems where the tempo of his scoring in white ball cricket is concerned. 

He, it ought to be reminded, began the latest and perhaps the most vital chapter of his white ball West Indies journey on a winning note. How was that? 

In his first game as captain of the one day unit, which was on March 18, 2023, to be precise, Hope cracked a captivating 128 not out off just 115 deliveries. 

The man we often begrudge doesn’t score that many sixes, hammered seven in his debut game as Windies captain sending Ngidi, Jansen and Fortuin to different parts of the ground at Buffalo Park at East London. 

Windies won the series opener, but Hope, so selfless, and many other times, calm and cool under pressure, was the reason for a savoury moment for Caribbean cricket. 

How often does the unit win away games, isn’t it? Then very recently, he produced useful and timely knocks of 43 off 45 deliveries and that unbeaten 63 at the Kensington Oval. 

India failed to whitewash the West Indies. And Shai Hope refused to buckle down being true to his DNA.

As a matter of fact, Hope’s been beating the pulp out of the white ball, an evidence of which was sensed in the most recent edition of the CPL; i.e., the CPL 2023. 

In a format famous for its Caribbean batters famed for their ball-smashing exploits, it was Shai Diego Hope who emerged as the popular league’s highest run scorer: amassing 481 runs at a strikingly good average of 53.4, a feat as gripping as his cover drive. 

But then what will they know who only know the legend Virat Kohli, the icon MS Dhoni and the other bigger names of the game. 

Does cricket exclusively belong to these celestial stars? Are other powers like Shai Hope not in this very cosmic galaxy? 

Not that Dhoni or Kohli are to be blamed for being greats of the game but it’s far too moronic and somewhere conceited of the fanboys to succumb to idol worshiping some who are mortals. 

What the mass hype around a GOAT- a phrase this generation is currently obsessed with- does, is that it tends to leave others who too may be doing quite well somewhere under the radar. 

Think, for instance, the number of times, Indian cricket fans undermined a New Zealand cricketer or the team on the whole only to be served a sobering lesson in mega ICC events such as the Test match final of the WTC. 

On his part, Williamson, much like Hope, does his part quietly and dedicatedly as ever. 

It is a fool’s errand to stay in awe of other more commercially popular names or bigger earners of those mega bucks when in truth, success isn’t in the bank balance alone but in terms of one’s impact and ability to inspire. 

Many many more will come to see Virat bat wherever he plays. And he deserves it. Truly. But for as long a Shai Hope- 60 shy of 5,000 one day runs- will bat for the West Indies, the distraught Caribbean fan will believe that the game is not yet over for the West Indies.

And why? Because wait- Hope is there.