West Indies critical after N.Z. wins test series

Press, 6 March 1980, Page 1

West Indies critical after N.Z. wins test series

“You people write what you want, you take no notice of what I say,” were the Comments of Mr W. Rodriguez, the West Indies cricket manager, as he declined to give the usual end-of-tour news conference after the third test yesterday.

The test was a draw, giving New Zealand a 1-0 win in the series. a. “A press conference would be an insult to me and a waste of my time,” said Mr Rodriguez. “You people take no notice of what I say so what is the point of having a press conference.”

Clive Lloyd, the West Indies captain, was a little more forthcoming, although his short news conference was confined largely to criticism of New Zealand umpires. “It would have been a

better series if the umpires had been better,” he said. “They were not good enough: sub-standard. Some of their decisions were really, blatant, as if they had made up their minds not to give us decisions.

“Our fast bowlers appealed umpteen times but then it got to the ridiculous stage when our bowlers were not even appealing: they knew they , would not get the decisions.”

. The New Zealand captain, Geoff Howarth, said the New Zealanders had designed their tactics to put the West Indians under pressure in the hope that they would crack. “We hoped to keep them pinned down with accurate bowling and good fielding and it worked, for they seemed to lose their natural flair,” he said.

“This has been a great team effort by the New Zealanders. I said at the start of the series that we would be a competitive team, , that we would be able to compete with the West Indians.

“We did that. I only hope that the other incidents of this tour do not detract from the New Zealand performance.” The New Zealand manager and one of the four selectors, Mr Frank Cameron, said the New Zealand tactics had been devised by the selectors and put into practice by Howarth and the team.

“We wanted tight, accurate bowlers, good fielding, and batsmen who would get into the line of the ball and not throw their wickets away by having a flash at the short balls outside the off stump,” he said.

“That is the basic way the team was picked, the way it was captained, and the way it performed, although the fielding slipped a little in this third test. “The plan worked and I estimate that we dictated the tactics in two-thirds of the sessions during the three tests. They let us dominate with our pattern. Individually they were better players than ours but collectively we played much better than they did.”

R. T. Brittenden, sports editor of “The Press,” writes that the West Indians have done some strange things during their New Zealand tour but one of the weirdest was a wistful attempt to get home a little earlier than the scheduled time.

On Tuesday it was found that four senior players — the captain, Clive Lloyd; the fast bowlers, Andy

Roberts and Michael Hold* ing; and a top batsman, Lawrence Rowe — had made tentative airline bookings for a flight which would have seen them leave Eden Park early yesterday afternoon. New Zealand cricket officials were startled and one of them made strong objections to the West Indies’ team manager, Mr Willy Rodriguez. He immediately promised that the players would stay if the match was not finished. It was a strange business because by yesterday afternoon there was no possibility of the test not taking up the whole of the last day. It would have been a surprising end to a tour to have had the West Indians in the field with four substitutes. Test report, back page