Age switch (20 July 1999)

20 July 1999

Age switch

Haydn Gill

Confusion over the age stipulation for the Carib Cement Under-15 Cricket Championship has delayed the selection of the Barbados team.

NATIONSPORT understands that the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) was only last week made aware that the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) had reverted to the original age limit for the annual championship starting in Guyana on August 11.

The stipulation remains the same as it was in previous years - players must be under 15 as at September 1, the year before the tournament is played, according to a fax dated July 15, 1999, which the BCA received from the WICB.

Based on information supplied by the WICB in a fax on November 16 last year, the BCA was using the stipulation which said players were to be under 15 as at September 1 in the year of the tournament.

The change means that several players who were not involved in Barbados' preparations are still eligible and the general feeling is that only a few of those in the current short-list will be genuine contenders.

WICB secretary Andrew Sealy told NATIONSPORT yesterday from his office in St. John's, Antigua, that the decision to go back to the previous condition was made since December last year.

Sealy said the change was made after representation by the Windward Islands who had already picked their squad under the old qualifications.

The Barbados selectors were to meet yesterday to pick their squad following the final trial match last week, but will now have to do so at a later stage.

"There is going to have to be some compromise along the line. We would have been preparing with some focus in mind," a BCA source said.

"We will have to make some adjustments. We will have to get some kind of trial situation in place and let performance dictate."

Among the players expected to come back in the reckoning is Deighton Griffith all-rounder Derrick Bishop, who was the leading wicket-taker in last year's BET Under-15 championship in which he led his team to the title.

Bishop, a left-arm spinner and middle-order batsman, represented Barbados in the 1997 and 1998 championships and would have been an automatic choice as captain had the changes not been made.

His schoolmate, leg-spinner Kenoy Williams, who also performed outstandingly in the local Under-15 competition, is regarded as another certainty.

Other players who could feature are Foundation's Andre Walcott, Dwayne Farrell, Jamal Forde and Ravi Shankar, Coleridge and Parry's Prince Parris, Harrison College's Emelike Edghill and Garrison's Josef Codrington.

Source :: The Barbados Nation (https://www.nationnews.com/)