Barbados senior players cannot take it for granted

Whoever is chosen to do it and there have just been more sweeping changes in the panel selecting a Barbados cricket team these days must be a frustrating business.

Successive chairmen Charlie Griffith, Desmond Haynes (albeit briefly) and now Richard Edwards and their colleagues have sat down, pondered and come up with several of the same players who, like certain calypsonians at the Stadium, seem to have become shareholders in the team.

The reason is simple and worrying. Especially among the batsmen, there are no obvious alternatives to the incumbents and the upshot is a lack of the competitive edge so essential to prevent complacency.

Sherwin Campbell, Philo Wallace, Adrian Griffith and Floyd Reifer have again been predictably picked for the imminent Red Stripe Bowl, their places unchallenged in spite of recent records that, in other circumstances, would have seen their places go to keen, talented youngsters.

Their returns over the past two seasons are revealing. Wallace averages 31.20 in the Busta Cup in that period and 16.71 in the Bowl, Campbell 25.91 in the Cup, 30 in the Bowl; Griffith 24.7 and 18.71; Reifer 22.13 and 31.75.

They must all know that these figures are just not good enough. They need to be told as much as they head off for Guyana next weekend and put on notice that their future as Barbados players depends on their performances in the tournament.

It is up to them to raise their game and ensure that Barbados manages more than its average 50-overs total of 205 over the past three Bowls.

They are responsible for avoiding another numbing embarrassment, such as the loss to the United States when they were bowled out for 129, as they incredibly were last year.

They are four experienced batsmen who have represented the West Indies in Tests and One-day Internationals. In their late 20s or early 30s, they are far from past it. Barbados has a right to expect more.

There is some encouragement in the inclusion of four newer, younger players, the batsmen Dale Richards and Kurt Wilkinson, the tall leftarm spinner Sulieman Benn and the powerfully-built Ryan Nurse.

Richards, 25, is back after injury kept him out of last season's Busta Cup following an encouraging entry into the team against South Africa A and in the Bowl.

Like Richards, Wilkinson, 20, had his first match for Barbados a year ago against the South Africans and confirmed his potential for West Indies B in the subsequent Busta Cup.

His medium-pace bowling and sharp fielding enhance his value, especially in the shorter form of the game, and he should be a certainty in the final XI in Guyana.

Benn, 20, is the natural successor to Winston Reid who spun and tricked out so many batsmen during his long career.

Benn's 26 Busta Cup wickets last season were for West Indies B. Those in future will be for Barbados and, possibly, the West Indies for the potential is clearly there.

Nurse, a left-handed batsman and bowler of lively pace, seems to be one of those gifted athletes to whom any sport comes easily.

He is a footballer and age-group track and field gold medallist but cricket represents his more meaningful future.

An innings of 20 and seven overs in Thursday's trial match were hardly enough to make a judgement but my immediate impression was of a natural cricketer with the right basics.

The well-established Ryan Hinds, the classy left-handed all-rounder, is the third 20-year-old among the 14.

His credentials as a future West Indies player have been long since obvious. After three years in the Barbados team, selection for West Indies A and a glowing report from the Shell Academy, he has arrived at the defining period of his career.

The coming six months, in Bowl and Busta, are likely to determine how far he goes.

Outside of the chosen 14, there were few other genuine contenders for Edwards and his wise men to consider, and certainly not among the batsmen.

As a cursory glance at the current Division 1 averages indicate, Barbados' batting, once the strongest in the Caribbean and, some would say without hyperbole, the world, remains at a low ebb.

Richards and Hinds duly appear high in the list but, in the first season in which pitches have been covered, the leading batsmen around them have been around for ages Leslie Reifer, Wallace, Ron Bates, Barry Callender, Thelston Payne, Rommel Brathwaite, Livy Puckerin.

The truth is that, at a time when a host of quality young batsmen have emerged from the other territories, Barbados' cupboard remains almost bare.

There are a host of reasons for this and they will surely be addressed in the Barbados Cricket Association's long-awaited development plan, to be presented to the public this week.

If they are not, the old familiar faces will be around in the team for several years to come.