Legendary former West Indies Captain, Sir Vivian Richards and batting genius has labeled the regional team fielding as “amateurship,” saying it could ill afford to be so poor in the field especially since their batting was not yet up to scratch.
Speaking against the backdrop of the recent 2-0 whitewash on the Test tour of New Zealand, Sir Viv said lapses in the field were clear signs the concentration of West Indies players was also lacking.
“When you hear that you’re playing at a particular level, the catches that were dropping are amateurship stuff because you cannot have a team that maybe cannot put bat to ball on a regular basis and continue to be dropping all those catches,” said Sir Viv, the only West Indies captain never to lose a Test series during a radio interview in Antigua.
West Indies suffered a humiliating defeat against New Zealand, losing the three-match Twenty 20 International series, 2-0, before losing going down by the same margin in the Test series.
Sir Viv was critical of the way fast bowler Alzarri Joseph was being utilized in the attack, contending he needed to be introduced earlier.
“I don’t believe he’s being handled particularly right at this time,” he said.
Joseph is the youngest member of the regular attack. He was one of the heroes of the West Indies Under-19s side that won the 2016 ICC Youth World Cup in Bangladesh.
He made his international debut later that year and has so far taken 32 wickets from 13 Tests and 48 from 28 One-Day Internationals.
