Cricket Selector: I Did Not Pick Barbados Commonwealth team (14 May 1998)

May 14 1998

Cricket Selector: I Did Not Pick Barbados Team

The Nation

CHAIRMAN of Barbados cricket selectors Charlie Griffith said he was not part of the panel which selected the squad for September's Commonwealth Games in Malaysia.

Speaking yesterday after a team' of 15 was published in the Barbados Advocate, Griffith said he was bombarded with phone calls questioning the selection and non-selection of players.

"I did not select a team. I don't know anything about it," he said from his St. Michael office.

Griffith added that he had not been informed by the secretariat of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) of the need to select a team at that stage, and therefore he and the other three members of the panel were not pressed to meet.

The other members of the panel are Stephen Farmer, Joel Garner and national coach William Bourne.

"As far as I'm concerned I was not aware of a deadline," Griffith said. "The BCA usually gives information on deadlines and I had not received any correspondence on a deadline up to then."

The former West Indies fast bowler said he returned to the island on May 6 after a 15-day trip, and was hoping to contact the other selectors after he received notification from the BCA.

"Two other selectors were also out of the island and it appears as though one man went ahead and picked the team," he said.

Such a move would be unprecedented.

"I am indeed puzzled by the action," Griffith said. "The issue of there being a need to urgently select a team never came up, so there was no need to panic."

He, however, said that if there was correspondence from the BCA he would have expected the other selectors to go ahead and select a team.

Meet this week

A report by Tony Cozier in the Daily Nation of May 6 quoted BCA president Tony Marshall as saying the selectors were likely to meet this week to finalise the final 16 players for the trip to Kuala Lumpur.

When contacted yesterday, business manager of the BCA Rollins Howard said he had not been given a team to announce.

He also said that the matter of the team or the captaincy was not discussed at Tuesday night's regular monthly board meeting, as reported by The Advocate.

Cricket will be part of the Commonwealth Games for the first time this year with 16 teams, divided into four groups, taking part.

The games will run from September 11-21.

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