Setting the standards
WICB chief Donald Peters has said selection to the West Indies national team will primarily be based in the future on stringent statistical standards presently well beyond the capacity of all but a couple of players
Tony Cozier
21-Oct-2008
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Donald Peters, the chief executive of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), has announced a new initiative which intends to apply statistics to the future selection of
the national team.
"If you decide that you are an opening batsman, we will expect you to occupy the crease for at least 75% of the time you go to bat and your batting average will be between 40 to 60 over at least ten first-class matches," Peters told the Trinidad Guardian. "If you are a top-order batsman we will expect you to have a batting average that is consistent with international players at that level or position."
As such, he indicated that selectors would be guided by a first-class average that "should be similar" to that of Michael Hussey, Ricky Ponting, Kumar Sangakkara, Kevin Pietersen, Virender Sehwag and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, all established international batsmen with Test averages of close to or above 50.
"I know that we are asking a lot, but remember that we are going to be competing against those very same players and in fact we used to be the team with those same averages," Peters said. "We were the Sobers, the Viv Richards, the Lloyds, the Greenidges, the Haynes, the Kanhais and the Laras, so we know it can be done."
Of those batsmen in the 2008 regional Carib Beer Series, only two with more than ten first-class matches had averages above 40 - Shivnarine Chanderpaul at 53.12 from 228 matches and Chris Gayle at 43.27 from 147 matches.
Ramnaresh Sarwan was next with 38.69 from 171 matches, less than his 40.4 average in Tests. Several others with Test experience were in the low 30s.
Peters revealed the WICB intended to introduce a regional professional league with an increased number of first-class matches and with foreign players included in the various teams.
He praised the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board youth development programme, identifying it as a model that all cricket organisations in the region should follow.
"They are working with their youth and developing them into international players and we applaud them."