Windies' attitude not good enough: Adams

Skipper Jimmy Adams lamblasted his players for having unacceptably low standards after another slip-shod West Indian team training session in Sydney on Tuesday.

Preparing for their Wednesday clash with Australia, the West Indies went through 45 minutes of fielding drills with little apparent effort. Players laughed when their teammates dropped a catch and often stood with their hands on their hips, giving off the impression they cared little about their work.

In contrast, Australian team training sessions are intense, non-stop competitive workouts, which consistently translate into professional displays on the field.

Adams said it was important his struggling team remained in good spirits but admitted he was concerned that individuals were not pushing themselves hard enough.

"What you're talking about is standards," he said.

"As well as team standards you need fellows to have individual standards, standards that they themselves will carry. "Never mind whether they're in a West Indies team or they're playing county cricket in England or they're playing club cricket back home, we need to have a system where each player has his own standards when they arrive in the Test team. There should be standards we set for ourselves before we find out what the team standards are about."

"On a whole our cricket in the Caribbean is failing a little bit in that we accept standards, individual standards, that are too low."

The great West Indies teams of the 1970s, '80s and early '90s set the benchmark for individual and team excellence. But those days are long gone and the West Indies, coming off a 5-nil thrashing in the Tests, are playing for pride in the tri-series against Australia and Zimbabwe.

"We were given 10 or 20 years of the highest example of cricket possible," said Adams. "We've lived it and seen it, what it means to go out onto a cricket field and personally, as well as collectively, want that highest standard for ourselves.

"While that was happening for 20 years, maybe the system that supported that team wasn't as consistent as it should have been, maybe it relaxed too long and got fat and lazy, who knows? Standards have dropped - as much as trying to get players ready technically, it is also a very big challenge to accept what standards should and should not be acceptable."

Adams again called for an overhaul of the development system in the Caribbean so players are trained to work hard from an early age.

Mail Cricket Editor