Cozier on cricket

Whenever it appears as if the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has surely run out of bizarre ideas to bewilder and astound us, up it comes with another.

The latest confusing script is typical of those that have come with such mind-boggling regularity from the secretariat in St. John's, Antigua.

It began before the team for the current tour of England was chosen when the selectors were instructed to choose no more than 16 players, in spite of their public protestations that they required 17.

So limited, they included only one practising wicket-keeper, Ridley Jacobs, with the explanation that Jimmy Adams and Wavell Hinds would be used as relief when necessary. It was pure cock-and-bull, as anyone with a modicrum of cricketing sense knew.

Adams was, indeed, once a capable keeper but that was long ago, before his knees, so essential for someone required to squat for every ball, required surgery and before he assumed the responsibility of captaincy. No one who knew Hinds, even from school, could ever remember him doing the job.

Even as late as two days prior to the team's departure, the WICB again reiterated in a public release that there would be no 17th player.

So, as the British Airways flight took off for London last Tuesday (and that, in itself, is another story of another WICB muddle, more of which later), we prayed that the Lord would keep Jacobs fit, focused and in form for the next three months.

The prospects of a cracked finger at pre-match knockup or a bout of measles on the morning of a Test that would force Adams to direct operations with gloves and pads on, knees creaking every time he bent down, must have filled Adams himself with dread.

The plane had hardly touched down at Heathrow when, out of the blue, the WICB announced in a media release: 'The West Indies cricket team will have the services of a second wicket-keeper during its tour of England.' This was the same organisation that, three days earlier, had declared: 'After considering a further request from the selection committee, the WICB has decided not to add a 17th player to the squad.' It gave no reason. That was that ' or so we were led to believe.

The explanation for the reversal was provided by chairman of selectors Mike Findlay. It was as weak as a tailender's defence.

According to the release, Findlay 'indicated that, under its cricket development programme for young West Indian cricketers, the secretariat of the WICB has arranged for talented wicket-keeper Wayne Phillip to join the MCC playing staff for this summer, and the West Indies selection committee has endorsed his availability for the touring Wst Indies cricket team as the team's management may see fit during the three-and-a-half month tour of England'.

In whatever language it was couched and whether the attachment to the MCC staff or the selctors' endorsement of his availability came first, the bottom line was that Findlay and his panel had their 17th man.

He was immediately put to work, in the opening match, and manager Ricky Skerritt made it plain that he would have many more before the tour was through.

Jacobs, after all, is 32, has kept in all 16 Tests and 46 One-Day Internationals since his debut a year-and-a-half ago and is visibly exhausted after the recent long home season. He, more than anyone else, needs a rest.

The process by which they obtained the promising Phillip has once more made the WICB look ridiculous, an annoyingly common occurrence.

If Phillip was in England and was to be drafted in, surely he should have been included as a bona fide, full-time member of the team and not as an occasional relief worker. He would 'improve his wicket-keeping and batting skills in the interest of the continuing, long-term development of West Indies cricket' (Findlay's words) as much with the West Indies team as with the MCC.

There are other aspects of the selection, as there was with Corey Collymore's, that are baffling. They send conflicting signals. Both are exciting young players. Yet Phillip was chosen in only two of the five representative first-class matches against Zimabwe and Pakistan. Courtney Browne kept in the other three and, even in the two One-Day practice matches against Pakistan, Junior Murray was used.

Collymore, whose quality was recognised in his selection for a Test against Australia in his first fist-class season last year, had only just recovered from serious back problems and appeared in one match when selected. It was a huge gamble. The coming months will tell whether it was worth it.

Oh, that BA flight to London. Although there was a non-stop service out of Antigua to Gatwick on Wednesday evening after the third Test, the West Indies, for some reason, flew back to Barbados to catch a separate non-stop flight to the same destination, leaving at roughly the same time.

It was the WICB again working in strange and mysterious ways, its wonders to perform.