Bravo, Pollard numbers don't add up

When Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard, among others, engineered the pull-out of the tour of India, I wrote that the players involved should never play cricket for the West Indies again.

However, in recent days, we have heard that Bravo and Pollard were "victimised" by being dropped from the ODI team. They are talking as if Bravo and Pollard have consistently played important roles in the 50-over game, as if they have been making regular, sterling contributions to the team effort. Their recent record does not support this.

In the aborted series against India, Bravo had scores of 17, 10 and 0. He bowled a total of 20 overs and took 4 wickets for 130 runs. Hardly awe-inspiring. Go back, if you will, to the previous series against Bangladesh. He had scores of 5, 6 and 3 not out. He bowled 12 overs and took 5 for 64. His batting average for his last six innings was 8.2. One has to go as far back as February 2014 to find a good score, 87 not out in the first match of England's tour to the Caribbean. This was followed by scores of 20 and 27. One good score in nine innings.

Forget that he belongs to your cricket club. Do you really consider such a performance worthy of your ODI captain? If a player is dropped for such poor performance, why would anyone claim that he is being victimised?

Now let's look at Pollard. In the tri-series with India and Sri Lanka in June 2013, he played four matches and scored 0, 4, 0 and 0. He retained his place for the Pakistan series which followed, but after scores of 3, 30 and 0, he was dropped for the remaining two ODIs. His average in seven matches before being dropped was 5.3, hardly the stuff on which a claim of victimisation can be made.

In August 2014, Pollard was back in the squad to play Bangladesh. He started off well with 89 in the first match. But, like Bravo, faltered to 26 and 10 in the next two and finished with one good score in 10 innings since the tri-series in 2013.

And then came India in October 2014. Pollard played three matches with scores of 2, 40 and 6. He also bowled 3 overs, taking 0 for 22 and a workload so slight might indicate that even his captain does not consider him an allrounder. Bravo did not give him a single over in the Bangladesh series.

So, in his last 10 innings for West Indies against decent opposition, Pollard's batting average was 8.5. If you include the matches against Bangladesh, his average in his last 13 innings climbs to 16.2. An improvement but, still, hardly remarkable.

So, based on their recent performances, the selectors' decision to drop Bravo and Pollard from the ODI team, should not be construed as an act of victimisation.