Tour of Australia 2000-01             Captain: Jimmy Adams

46th official tour

Eleventh Test tour by West Indies to Australia        

 (November 2000 -

                 February 2001)

The day before the team departed the Caribbean for their Australian tour the Board announced it would not take any action over an Indian match-fixing report which said star batsman Brian Lara received US$40,000 from bookmaker Marlon Gupta to "under-perform".

This was West Indies worst tour, losing five-nil in the Test matches, and losing six-nil against Australia in the one-day matches. While marginal decisions tended to go Australia's way and not in favour of West Indies, it was nevertheless a dramatic fall from the standards set by West Indian teams since the only previous time that five Test matches were lost (5-1 in 1975-76).  Lara was regarded as a failure for recording three Test ducks but he was nevertheless top-scorer with 321 runs in the series.

The bowling was spearheaded for the last time on tour by Courtney Walsh who ended with 11 wickets which were bettered only by Dillon on 16. 

At the end of the tour captain Jimmy Adams and his deputy Sherwin Campbell were sacked. A lack of discipline in playing and training, which had always been the strength of the side in the Lloyd/Richards era, had damaged the side’s ability to come through as a unified group. Adams remained dignified and calm but proved unable to inspire the team to mental toughness or greater pride in performance, and the run of disastrous results continued with West Indies’ sixth consecutive away series defeat.

Other West Indies tours

Previous tour

England 2000

Next tour

Zimbabwe 2001

Next Australian tour

2005-06

Members of the Test tour party  (16 + 1)

Opening batsmen: Sherwin Campbell,  Wavell Hinds, Daren Ganga

Middle-order batsmen  Brian Lara,  Jimmy Adams, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Marlon Samuels (r).

Wicket-keepers: Ridley Jacobs, Courtney Browne.

Spin bowler  Mahendra Nagamootoo

Fast bowlers:  Marlon Black,  Kerry Jeremy, Mervyn Dillon,  Courtney  Walsh, Nixon McLean, Colin Stuart

Representation of teams:   

B - Barbados (2)

G - Guyana (4)

Ja - Jamaica (3)

L - Leeward Islands (2)

T - Trinidad & Tobago (4)

W - Windward Islands (1)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(23 November 2000) :   

     27 yrs  7 months

Test Appearances made before the tour

Walsh 122,  Lara 70,  Adams 50,  Campbell 46,  Chanderpaul 44,  Jacobs 21,  MacLean 12,  Hinds 10,  Browne 7,  Dillon 7,  Sarwan 5,  Ganga 4,  Nagamootoo 1,  Black 0,  Jeremy 0,  Samuels 0,  Stuart 0.

Team Officials

Selectors

Mike Findlay (chairman),  Michael 'Joey' Carew  and  Joel Garner

Selection

Unavailable:   Curtley Ambrose (retired), Reon King (injured). 

Not considered:   Carl Hooper missed the four-day Busta Cup earlier this year which made him ineligible for the Test tour.

Tour Party Announced :  approx 17 October 2000.

Not selected :  Chris Gayle,  Franklin Rose.

Time between selection and departure from West Indies

  x days

(17? October to 2? November)

Travel

KingstonQ  London Q   Perth

The team assembled in Kingston's Pegasus Hotel, Jamaica, and flew to London.  On the morning of 4 November 2000 they flew into Perth International Airport.

Ricardo Powell, Sylvester Joseph and Laurie Williams left the Caribbean on 30 December to join the West Indies team for the triangular one-day series

Time spent in Australia

   x days

(4 November - depart Host)

On-tour selection panel

Reinforcements

Marlon Samuels, a tour reserve, left Kingston, Jamaica, on 5 December to replace Shivnarine Chanderpaul (returned home after suffering a stress fracture in his left leg).  Samuels arrived in Sydney on 8 December and flew straight to Hobart to play in the tour match.

Kerry Jeremy underwent surgery for a broken jaw after being hit in the Western Australia tour match

Cameron Cuffy (W) RFM was added to the ODI squad to replace Merv Dillon (ankle injury) and left the Caribbean on 1 January

Coach Roger Harper had to field as substitute at Canberra when Nagamootoo, Sarwan, Dillon and McLean were all unfit or unwell.

Fixtures/Results

† not first-class

§  one-day international

⊕  Twenty20 international

Time spent in Australia before First Test: 

19 days

(4 November - 23 November)

Test appearances on tour

5  -  Adams,  Campbell,  Jacobs,  Lara,  Maclean,  Walsh.

4  -  Dillon,  Ganga,  Hinds

3  -  Black,  Samuels,  Sarwan

2  -  Stuart

1 -   Chanderpaul,  Nagamootoo.

0 -   Browne,  Jeremy.

Highlights

•  Brian Lara, in his highest innings of the series (182), shared in a 183-run partnership with captain Jimmy Adams to rescue West Indies from a poor start on the first day of the third Test

•  Ridley Jacobs had a world record equalling performance of seven catches in an innings in the third Test

•  Jacobs, with his 288-run aggregate, was outscored only by Brian Lara (321) in the five Test series.

•  Marlon Samuels, aged only 19, impressed with calm innings of 60 not out and 46 at Adelaide

•  Campbell and Hinds’ opening partnership of 147 at Sydney beat the Greenidge /Haynes record of 135

Tour Summary

Return to West Indies

MelbourneQ  London Q   Bridgetown

Shivnarine Chanderpaul, injured, returned home early on 21 December. Dillon was also injured and returned home early.

Ramnaresh Sarwan, Courtney Browne, Kerry Jeremy and Courtney Walsh returned to the Caribbean at the end of the fifth Test on 7 January. 

At the end of the tour, fast bowler Marlon Black was violently attacked by four men outside a nightclub in Melbourne the night before the team left, suffering a head wound and aggravating a shoulder injury in the incident. At the Victorian County Court the following October they pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury in the assault that took place outside Colonial Stadium.

The West Indies one-day team flew home from Melbourne to the Caribbean on the afternoon of Monday 12 February 2001.  Transiting through London where Adams remained, the bulk of the team arrived at Grantley Adams Airport, Barbados, next day while four of the five Jamaicans - Samuels, Williams, Hinds and Powell - flew into Norman Manley Airport, Kingston, also on Tuesday 13 February.

Time away from West Indies    x days  

(2? November to 13 February)