West Indies Board XI players too green (21 February 1999)

21 February 1999

West Indies Board XI players too green

Tony Cozier

As they sat down last week to discuss the strategy and the captaincy for the imminent and intimidating battle against the Australians, the West Indies selectors found themselves painfully lodged between a jagged rock and a very hard place.

The rock was the captaincy.

As they weighed all the evidence and considered whether Brian Lara should be retained or not, they had the names of several alternatives thrown at them. But all of the most prominent - in descending alphabetical and realistic order, Jimmy Adams, Ian Bishop, Sherwin Campbell and Roland Holder - had been dropped from the Test team more than once in the past and could not be guaranteed to hold down a settled place now.

Their advantage was that they had all fortunately escaped the plague of South Africa and were all seasoned campaigners with experience at the job, if at a less conspicuous and demanding level.

Whether that recommendation is enough or, indeed, whether they thought the matter worth discussing at all we will soon know.

Once that is settled, the most pressing issue is the team itself, which is where they encounter the hard place. The conundrum was graphically emphasised by their policy statement released during the week.

It began by revealing that Mike Findlay, Joey Carew and Joel Garner now consider it "expedient" to begin a process of rebuilding West Indies cricket for the future. It seems rather late in the day but be that as it may.

Emphasis, they explained, would be placed "on exposing young, talented, committed and disciplined cricketers who appear to have the potential to serve the best long-term interest of West Indies cricket".

They then quickly covered every eventuality with the assurance that, "given the importance" of the Australian series and the following World Cup "careful consideration will also be given to those players who demonstrate the capacity to cope immediately with the demands of the highest standards of international cricket at both Test and One-Day levels".

Everyone would say three cheers to the first affirmation but there is the obvious danger of carrying it to the extreme. And that is exactly what they have done at the first time of asking.

They packed the Board XI for the opening match against the Australians, starting in Antigua tomorrow, with eight players in their maiden first-class seasons, none of whom has yet scored a hundred and only one with a five-wicket return to his name. Four are teenagers.

They have not so much pushed Ryan Hinds, Chris Gayle, Matthew Sinclair, Devon Smith and the rest into the deep end of the pool as tossed them straight into the middle of Kick 'Em Jenny without so much as an inner-tube for support.

They are all unquestionably talented and may well be committed and disciplined as well. But it will do their self-esteem no good whatsoever to be knocked over by the uncompromising Australians in a couple of days.

It will be a stern examination of the young players, with Stuart MacGill or Shane Warne, or both, fizzing their leg-breaks, googlies and top-spinners at them with a cluster of sledging Aussies around them.

They surely needed the security of a couple more battle-hardened veterans, Roland Holder and Keith Arthurton for instance, in the middle for them to lean on. Ryan Hinds is not going to find much comfort from Smith or Gayle and vice-versa.

There is another chance before the first Test, in the President's XI at Guaracara Park next weekend, when the promising Trinidadians and Guyanese, ruled out by the staging of the Busta Cup semifinal, will get their chance.

If he can tear himself away from his newborn son in far-off Australia, Carl Hooper will be there to lend his experience and he should be joined by one or two others who have been there and done that.

Hooper's absence, on "compassionate grounds", has been compounded by the injuries that have kept Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh idle since South Africa, ruled out Franklyn Rose and Dinanath Ramnarine and sent Nixon McLean off to New York for treatment from the Board's specialist.

It means that, as of now, the only two who can be written down with any certainty as starters come March 5 at the Queen's Park Oval are Ridley Jacobs and Campbell, who has so emphatically earned the right of recall by dint of performance.

Hopefully, Lara, whether captain or not, Chanderpaul, Ambrose, Walsh and McLean will all be fit enough in time and Hooper would have played the Guaracara match that is a prerequisite for his selection.

Once everyone is ready and available - "young, talented, committed and disciplined" as well as those who "demonstrate a capacity to cope immediately with the demands of the highest standards of international cricket" - and the selectors make their choices, they need to stick as closely as possible to them throughout the series.

The going is bound to be tough.

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