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Marlon Samuels' two-year ban

A self-inflicted wound

Fazeer Mohammed

May 15, 2008

	Marlon Samuels during that fateful tour to India in January, 2007 © AFP

Yes, the temptation is almost irresistible for those still stung by his role (inadvertent or otherwise) in the demise of Brian Lara on the national hero's final day as a player for the regional side. However, after uttering "It good for him!" or "he look for dat!", what do we have left but time to properly contemplate on an unfulfilled career that seems so sadly typical of a talented yet misdirected generation, both on and off the field of play?

And let's not write his epitaph as a West Indies batsman as yet, for much in the same way as the ravenous, ultra-competitive Indian media were tripping over themselves to draw the curtain on the Jamaican batsman's international career when the allegations first arose following last year's limited-over series in India, rumours of Samuels' final demise may prove exaggerated.

It is unlikely that the ICC will accede to the tribunal's consideration that Samuels be placed on probation instead of being suspended altogether after he was found guilty on the charge that he "received money, benefit or other reward which could bring him or the game of cricket into disrepute", all stemming from his contact with bookmaker Mukesh Kochar prior to the first ODI in Nagpur on January 21, 2007.

Still, he will be well short of his 30th birthday when the sentence, if upheld, is completed on May 8, 2010. In fact, it can be argued that Samuels has been in and out of the senior regional squad so often and for so many different reasons since an impressive entry into Test cricket as a 19-year-old in Australia that a two-year hiatus is more or less par for the course. So it shouldn't be the end of his time wearing the burgundy cap, assuming he retains the desire to return to the highest level in the midst of what could be a very frustrating exile.

And that really is the question. Does he care enough, does it mean enough to him that he will want to emerge after this considerable blot on his career to make amends for time and opportunities lost?

Carl Hooper was another consistent under-achiever before his surprise retirement at the end of the 1999 home series against Australia. He returned, to the consternation of some, to lead the West Indies against South Africa in 2001 and for another two years until the first-round exit at the 2003 World Cup. However, Hooper was far more reliable in his second coming than the first 12 years of his international career in which he promised much but delivered little.

Samuels' time as a West Indies batsman, especially in Tests, has been pretty much the same, as an average of 28.73 over 29 matches will attest. He has appeared in 107 ODIs (average 30.27), which is again unexceptional. So, will the two-year ban make him realise how much he has squandered his considerable talent, and therefore contribute to significantly altering his attitude to batting and the game in general?

Or will he bristle defiantly, his misplaced anger fuelled by fair-weather friends convincing him that this is all a great conspiracy and that he has done nothing wrong? Given the degree of selfish, self-indulgent behaviour that defines prevailing youth culture, it will not be surprising if Samuels refuses to accept that he has played any role, however unwittingly, in his own impending alienation.

It is always somebody else's fault, in keeping with the siege mentality that repels even the mildest and most constructive of criticism, an insecurity and an immaturity that blights any prospect of real progress in contemporary Caribbean society.

Part of growing up is acknowledging when you have done wrong, for such an admission is the first step towards reconciliation and reformation. If you exist in the sort of delusional world where everything is pleasing, then there's no need to change anything. Before you know it, the world has passed you by and your disconnection from reality means you don't even have a clue as to how to get back on track.

On Monday night, Samuels informed an interviewer on a Jamaican radio station to the effect that as far as he was concerned, nothing had changed regarding his status in the West Indies training squad ahead of the Australian series and he was preparing to leave for Antigua where the preparatory camp is based this week.

Not for the first time, perception and reality are poles apart.

In an earlier era, he would have been permanently cast aside as a chronic under-achiever or lifted himself up and developed into one of the premier batsmen of modern times. That neither has happened is in keeping with the inertia that has West Indian cricket administrators and fans still dizzy with the prospect of recapturing past glories in the not-too-distant future.

It is this unfounded belief in the eventual fulfillment of an empty promise that nurtures the willingness to excuse the indiscretions of the modern crop.

At another time, or in another environment, you would give Samuels a very good chance of coming back better than before. You fear, though, that a cricketer of such sumptuous talent has contributed to his own demise and, sadly, doesn't even know it.

Fazeer Mohammed is a writer and broadcaster in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad

© Trinidad & Tobago Express