ENG_BDOS_PREMATCH_09FEB94

9 Feb 1994

Igglesden fills Caddick void

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins in Bridgetown

The West Indies selectors have announced more or less the expected team for the first two one-day internationals - the opening game is at Kensington Oval next Wednesday - and for the first Test in Kingston starting a week on Saturday. England's selectors perhaps had tougher decisions to make for the four-day game against Barbados. Matthew Maynard and Nasser Hussain, as expected, are the batsmen omitted and if the injured Andrew Caddick were to be substituted for Alan Igglesden, the 11 chosen - Atherton, Stewart, Ramprakash, Smith, Hick, Thorpe, Russell, Fraser, Igglesden, Malcolm and Tufnell - may take the field at Sabina Park. Either Chris Lewis or one of the two eliminated batsmen might have been given another chance here if Jack Russel had been rested, but captain Mike Atherton said of his wicketkeeper yesterday: "I'd like to keep him getting runs at seven. He's a very important member of the team." He indicated, however, that Alec Stewart will keep wicket in the one-day match and that he will do as much keeping as he wants in this game to prepare him for that role. The chief reason for choosing Igglesden seems to be that, with Caddick unlikely to play in the international, he may be needed to do so instead. Perhaps bearing in mind his own boring exile in India last winter, the captain is also anxious to keep everyone involved in the tour for as long as possible. The West Indies themselves have made two concessions to the demands of the limited-overs game, which is two more than they once did. Jimmy Adams, the versatile Jamaican, will keep wicket next Wednesday with Junior Murray returning for the Test. Adams bats and bowls left-handed (his bowling helped to win the Test against South Africa here two years ago) but for the moment he is cast as one-day utility man and Test reserve for Keith Arthurton. The other one-day specialist is the 'veteran' Roger Harper, a player who seems almost to hail from a different era although he is only 30 and remains a wonderful fielder. He played in the last West Indies Test match, against Sri Lanka in Colombo last December, but he was taken there only because it was known that conditions would favour spin bowling. Now Harper is named only for the one-day game, along with the five fast bowlers expected - Ambrose, Walsh, Cummins and a brace of Benjamins. Anderson Cummins has had only a moderate season in a Barbados side who finished above only the weak Windward Islands in the Red Stripe Cup, so he needs a good performance against England in the match starting today to justify his selection. Desmond Haynes is playing, he says, "to feel England a little". It is good for the touring team that he is doing so and the renewal of his acquaintance with Devon Malcolm and his Middlesex team-mate, Angus Fraser, should be instructive. Barbados are led by Roland Holder, another who toured Sri Lanka but who had an unsuccessful Red Stripe season with the bat until saving the match with a second-innings hundred in Trinidad on Monday. The home team have a proud record against MCC and England teams to uphold. England have not beaten them since Len Hutton's 1953-54 tour. A decade later, when Sir Garfield Sobers was still in his pomp, the island were strong enough to take on the Rest of the World. The challenge they present now is less formidable but it is encouraging that Atherton says he intends to put winning the match ahead of any idea of treating it merely as practice. (Thanks: The Daily Telegraph)

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)