Tour of South Africa 1998-99       Captain: Brian Lara

43rd West Indies Test tour

First official Test-playing tour by West Indies to South Africa

(November 1998 - January 1999)

The first Test tour to South Africa by a West Indies team that was official - those led by Lawrence Rowe in the ‘eighties were rebel tours - was of great cultural significance. A black Caribbean side, including the world’s greatest batsman, playing in post-apartheid times was intended to tie sporting bonds between the two.  But a major dispute broke out between the skipper and his vice-captain and the West Indies Board over fees, which the Board maintained had already been agreed with the West Indies Players Association.

Board president Pat Rousseau sacked Brian Lara and Carl Hooper, captain and vice-captain, from their posts. Other team members who supported their skipper and would not proceed to South Africa were fined.

The South Africans were desperate for the tour to go ahead. Ali Bacher reminded the West Indian team that "generations of black cricketers and cricket followers had taken inspiration of the performances of WestIndies teams.” Even the South African president Nelson Mandela became involved, writing individually signed letters to each of the sixteen players to persuade them to come. Sponsors and TV companies as well as the public demanded to see a full-strength side.

The tour fees were not increased but compromise was eventually reached when the dispute was glossed over as “a misunderstanding”, and the West Indies Board announced a restructuring of future payments for experienced players. When the tourists finally began their tour programme the distraction of the week-long discord had its effect and the tour party was never unified.

In playing terms it was a disaster. Manager Clive Lloyd described his team's batting as abysmal and blamed the players for their lack of discipline and professionalism. Too often their wickets were surrendered meekly or to irresponsible shots.  The younger bowlers strived, while Walsh, Rose and Ambrose produced occasional withering spells before they broke down with injury. But with support in the field deteriorating as the tour went on, the bowlers could not sustain pressure on South Africa’s batsmen.

It became the first series in which a West Indian Test side had lost all five matches.

Other West Indies tours

Previous tour

Pakistan 1997-98

Next tour

New Zealand 1999-2000

Next South African tour

2003-04

Members of the Test tour party (16 + 4)

Opening batsmen:Stuart Williams, Clayton Lambert, Philo Wallace

Middle-order batsmen:  Daren Ganga, Jimmy Adams (replaced by  Floyd Reifer), Brian Lara, Shiv Chanderpaul, Carl Hooper

Wicket-keepers:  Ridley Jacobs, Junior Murray

Spin bowlers:  ‘Dinas’ Ramnarine (replaced by  Rawl Lewis)

Fast bowlers:  Curtly Ambrose, Mervyn Dillon, Nixon McLean, Franklyn Rose, Courtney Walsh, (reinforced by  Ottis Gibson and Reon King)

Regional representation

B - Barbados

G  - Guyana

J  - Jamaica

L - Leeward Islands

T - Trinidad & Tobago

W  - Windward Islands

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(26 November 1998) :

29 yrs  0 months

ODI  Member of the one-day series squad for (W) Wills International Cup and (

Test Appearances made before the tour

Walsh 102,  Ambrose 80,  Hooper 73,  Lara 54,  Adams 33,  Chanderpaul 30,  Murray 29,  Williams 26,  Rose 10,  McLean 4,  Dillon 3,  Lambert 3,  Wallace 3,  Ramnarine  2,  Reifer 2,  Gibson 1,  Lewis 1,  Ganga 0,  Jacobs 0,  King 0.

Tour Officials

Selectors

Joey Carew (chairman),  Mike Findlay,  Joel Garner.

Selection

Unavailable:  Vasbert Drakes was ineligible because he had not played in the Caribbean in the previous season.

Tour Party Announced :  14 August 1998.

Withdrawn :  Curtley Ambrose was given permission to miss the Wills tournament in Bangladesh to repair his house, which had been damaged by Hurricane George.Reon King replaced him.

Not selected : Sherwin Campbell,  Roland Holder, Ian Bishop (suffering from back problems).

When Lara and Hooper were sacked, the selectors chose Keith Arthurton and Sherwin Campbell to take their places but

Time between selection and departure from West Indies

  70 days

(14 August to 23 October)

Travel

Trinidad  Q  London   Q  Dhaka

Dhaka   Q  London

London Q  Johannesburg

The 14-man one-day squad left Piarco Airport, Trinidad, for London on Friday 23 October, arriving in Bangladesh to play a week-long one-day international tournament, the Wills Cup, on 25 October.

After losing in the final, seven players flew from the tournament in Bangladesh to South Africa on 3 November. They were Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Mervyn Dillon, Ridley Jacobs, Clayton Lambert, Nixon McLean, Philo Wallace and Stuart Williams.

But Brian Lara and Carl Hooper, who were selected along with the seven other players for both the Wills Cup and the Test series, abruptly departed from the Dhaka - Johannesburg flight at a transit point in Bangkok and flew instead to London.

Arrangements had been made for the other Test team members to arrive in Johannesburg in two batches, but they did not turn up.  Jimmy Adams, Darren Ganga, Junior Murray, Dinanath Ramnarine and Franklyn Rose were scheduled to leave London for Johannesburg on Sunday 1 November, but stayed there. Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, who left the Caribbean for London on Sunday and were due to arrive in South Africa on 4 November, also remained in London, staying at a hotel near Heathrow Airport.. All seven were fined.

Dr Ali Bacher, chief executive of South Africa’s United Cricket Board, and tour manager Clive Lloyd flew from Johannesburg to London on the night of 5 November to meet the players’ representatives.

Next day the seven who were already in South Africa flew back to Heathrow, apart from Mervyn Dillon who remained in South Africa with team coach Malcolm Marshall because he was unable to find his travel documents.

A week-long training camp in Johannesburg was abandoned, and a one-day match against a Nicky Oppenheimer XI due to be played at Randjesfontein was cancelled, which cost the beneficiaries (the United Cricket Board development programme) 100 000 rand.

Once Brian Lara was reappointed as West Indian captain, and the dispute was resolved, the team caught a South African Airways flight leaving London at 9 pm and flew into Johannesburg on Tuesday morning 10 November 1998.

Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh missed the flight and arrived the next day.

The first match was played at Soweto on 11 November. Pat Rousseau, president of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control, who handled the pay dispute, was robbed at gunpoint and his car stolen on a visit to the Soweto Cricket Oval.

Time spent in South Africa

   90 days

(10 November - 8 February)

On-tour selection panel

Not Lloyd  - see below; 

Reinforcements

Floyd Reifer was a replacement for Jimmy Adams. Adams cut the tendons of a little finger on his right hand with a plastic bread knife while on the flight to Johannesburg.  Reifer, who was with the West Indies "A" team in Bangladesh, joined the senior side in Johannesburg on Saturday 14 November.  In the end the tendons healed slowly and Adams had to return home without playing.

Rawl Lewis was a replacement for Dinanath Ramnarine whose shoulder injury ruled him out of the rest of the tour. Lewis was rushed from Pune on the West Indies A tour to Mumbai, and on to Johannesburg in time for the first Test. Ramnarine returned home to Trinidad and then flew to New York for treatment. 

Colin Croft : “When it was found early in the tour that he [Ramnarine] was not fit enough and should not have even boarded the airplane at Piarco, another supposed leg-spinner, Rawl Lewis, was called up from India to take his place. At least he was fit, but he too was useless.” (from http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/91099.html)

Philo Wallace had glandular fever and could not be considered to play in mid-tour.

When Walsh (hamstring) and Ambrose (knee) were injured, and Franklin Rose returned home early with a shoulder injury, Ottis Gibsonwas called up from playing with South African side, Kimberley, for the fourth Test.  Ambrose was unable to play in the final Test, so Reon King who was due to join the squad for the one-day series was rushed across and played shortly after landing.

The tour management wished to retain Merv Dillon and add him to the squad for the one-day series but he returned home at the end of the Test matches

Fixtures/Results

† not first-class

§  one-day international

Time spent in South Africa before First Test:

        16 days

(10 November - 26 November)

Test appearances on tour

5  -   Chanderpaul,  Hooper,  Jacobs,  Lara.

4  -   Ambrose,  McLean,  Wallace,  Walsh.

3  -   Dillon,  Ganga, 

2  -   Lambert,  Lewis,  J Murray,  Reifer,  Williams

1  -   Gibson,  King,  Rose.

0  -   Adams,  Ramnarine.

Highlights

•    New cap Ridley Jacobs scored two fifties in the series and topped the averages with 317 runs.

•    Franklin Rose took 7-84 at Durban, the best bowling figures by a visiting player on that ground.

•    Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh returned figures of 6-51 at Port Elizabeth and 6-80 at Centurion.

Tour Summary

Return to West Indies

Johannesburg Q  London  Q   Bridgetown

After the one-day tournament in Bangladesh Keith Arthurton and Phil Simmons returned to the West Indies, while Reon King, Rawl Lewis and Neil McGarrell remained to join the West Indies A tour of Bangladesh.

At the end of the Test series Dillon, Lambert, Walsh and Williams returned home on 19 January.

The last match of the South African tour ended on 7 February 1999, and next day the team flew to London.

Barbadians Philo Wallace and Floyd Reifer with Guyanese Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Reon King, Keith Semple and Neil McGarrell also on board, returned on a British Airways flight from London landing at Grantley Adams International Airport, Bridgetown, at 2:30 pm on Tuesday 9 February.

The Jamaicans took a flight from London to New York and then to Kingston.

Time away from West Indies       

     109 days 

(23 October - 9 February)

Finances

The WICB had budgeted to pay the players a total of $555,000 for the tour but the fees the players were offered wetre 30% less than those paid for the 1996-97 trip to Australia - also a five Test series.

Accounts of the tour

Postscript

Clive Lloyd’s view was that the tour should have been cancelled and no other country would have proceded after such discord at the beginning of the tour.

As manager he had in mind the sorts of players who should be used by West Indies in future, but was not given any role in selection.

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) summoned tour captain Lara, manager Lloyd and coach Malcolm Marshall to a debriefing in Antigua and a four-man committee began its investigation into the tour.

The committee members were president Pat Rousseau, (chairman of the cricket committee) Jackie Hendriks and Michael Findlay chairman of selectors, Stephen Camacho, CEO of the West Indies Cricket Board

On 23 February 1999, after all that had happened, the Board ducked its opportunity to demote Brian Lara and he was reappointed captain for the home series against Australia (albeit on probation for the first two Tests only). Pat Rousseau kicked the problem into the long grass, saying he "needed to improve his leadership skills significantly”.