Hinds a gamble

The decision not to immediately name a replacement for the injured Wavell Hinds in the West Indies' touring team to Sri Lanka is a calculated gamble.

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has said the selectors would only determine whether Hinds goes or not after receiving a medical report following surgery on his broken nose, to be performed tomorrow.

The damage was caused when the left-hander topedged a ball from former Test fast bowler and current selector, Joel Garner, into his face during the annual Melbourne Club Festival match in Kingston last Sunday. Dr Askhai Mansingh, the specialist in charge of the openers, has reported Hinds will be able to travel to Colombo to join the team on Monday.

It means he would not arrive until next Wednesday, eliminating him from the first tour match, over three days against Sri Lanka A in Colombo that starts on Saturday. He would then have only one day in Sri Lanka to prepare for the second match, also against the A team over three days in the southern town of Matara. After that, the three Tests follow back-to-back.

Since there is no way of precisely knowing what the effects of the injury are until Hinds gets into the middle again, it reduces the middle-order options for the Test team.

Roland Holder was in a similar situation on the 1994 tour of India. He sliced his mouth badly shaving a few days before departure but was carried all the same. He could not play until a month into the tour, limiting him to one first-class match and virtually putting him out of contention for the three Tests.

It is understandable that the selectors should keep faith with Hinds, who was drafted into the original squad of 16 for Brian Lara but eventually came in after Shivnarine Chanderpaul was eliminated with back pain. He is a talented player with 18 Tests but has had lean times after an encouraging start to his career.

Chairman Mike Findlay said yesterday replacements for the tour had been chosen but he declined to name them. He would have done well to identify credible middle-order batting alternatives.

The only ones left behind with Test experience are, in order of seniority, Sherwin Campbell, Stuart Williams, Junior Murray, Floyd Reifer, Dave Joseph, Lincoln Roberts and Ricardo Powell.

Two stronger candidates would be the unrelated Hinds, Ryan, the 20-year-old left-handed Barbados all-rounder, and Travis Dowlin, the 24-year-old right-handed Guyanese.

In spite of his age, Hinds has been long since groomed for upward movement through West Indies Under-15, Under-19 and A teams. He is one of the future and, on the evidence of the recent Red Stripe Bowl, should at least come into the reckoning later in the tour for the triangular One-Day series also involving Zimbabwe.

Over the past two seasons, in which he has averaged over 40 an innings, Dowlin has looked a competent, well-organised batsman with an excellent temperament.

The cupboard is not entirely bare but its contents are demonstrably scant at the moment.