Windies call up Samuels

Clearly guided by potential over performance, the regional selectors yesterday summoned Jamaican teenager Marlon Samuels to join the West Indies team in Australia as a replacement for the injured Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

The 19-year-old right-hander has never once appeared in a regional first-class match in spite of playing for his country's senior team at the age of 16.

But his potential was spotted during his appearances for representative West Indies teams against Australia, Pakistan and Zimbabwe during the last two seasons and he made his One-Day International debut at the Mini World Cup in Kenya in October.

In announcing Samuels' call-up, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) said his selection was subject to him passing a fitness test and medical examination between yesterday and this morning, prior to his scheduled departure tonight.

The WICB also reiterated that Chanderpaul, who suffered a stress fracture to his left leg just before the start of the second Test in Perth, would require six weeks' rest and recuperation.

Samuels, a younger brother of former West Indies opener Robert Samuels, is a two-time West Indies youth team selectee and was the team's vice-captain at the youth World Cup in Sri Lanka earlier this year.

It is believed that Samuels, who also bowls steady off-spin, might have won his place ahead of fellow Jamaican Ricardo Powell.

Meanwhile, WICB member Maurice Foster, in an interview with Jamaica's Sports Globe, knocked the selectors for failing to choose the aggressive Powell in the original tour party.

He also agreed with Barbadian Seymour Nurse that the regional team should play cricket the West Indies way-aggressive.

"Seymour is right. There is only one way we can be competitive against Australia and that is by being aggressive," Foster told the weekly newspaper prior to the announcement of Samuels' selection.

"From now on, the West Indies will have a difficulty based on the fragility of its batting," the former West Indies batsman added.

"That is why I believe that a player like Ricardo Powell should be in the side. I am more convinced now that Powell has been wrongly used in the past.

"You need a player like Powell to take on Glenn McGrath and company."