Youngest Team Member Has Chance For First Test (18 November 1998)

18 November 1998

Youngest Team Member Has Chance For First Test

by Tony Cozier

JOHANNESBURG - The tour that nearly never was has barely got going but already the newest and youngest member of the West Indies team has created such an impression that he is a definite candidate for the first Test.

Daren Ganga, the 19-year-old Trinidad and Tobago batsman who was one of the most daring selections of recent times, could make his Test debut at the new Wanderers Stadium here a week tomorrow.

Ganga has had the way open for him by the inadvertent slip of a breadknife on the flight from London, 35 000 feet above Africa, that sliced Jimmy Adams' right little finger.

"Since we've lost one of our main middle-order batsmen in Jimmy, the opportunity is there for Daren to play," captain Brian Lara told the Press here during the match against Griqualand West that ended in a draw in Kimberley yesterday.

Ganga has batted only twice, scoring 18 in a stand of 96 with Lara in the opening match in Soweto and 50 against Griqualand West.

"What's impressed me most has been his maturity," said manager Clive Lloyd who is seeing Ganga for the second time. "He seems to have a good temperament and his technique is sound."

Lara has watched Ganga's promise from up close as Trinidad and Tobago captain and his influence in his selection can be taken as read.

"Daren's started well and has spent a long time at the crease and faced a lot of balls," Lara said.

"I would like to see more of him in the middle and I would like to see him turn those 50s into hundreds, especially as a young man on his first tour."

The most relevant aspect of Ganga's two innings so far, both at No. 5, has been that he accepted his support role to Lara and Carl Hooper, with whom he added 86 against Griqualand West.

Whether Lara and Lloyd believe Ganga is ready to be immediately thrown into the deep end against Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock, one of Test cricket's most lethal new ball pairs, is a question that is likely to be answered in the composition of the XI for the four-day match against Orange Free State in Bloemfontein, starting tomorrow.

The contenders for the vacant No. 6 position are Stuart Williams, a specialist opener who has been dismissed cheaply in both his innings so far; Floyd Reifer, the left-hander flown in from the "A" team tour of Bangladesh as Adams' replacement, and Ganga.

The team's hierarchy is likely to want to see all three against OFS, altogether stronger opposition than Grigualand West - even if Donald and captain Hansie Cronje of the Test team are likely to merely observe from the comfort of the pavilion.

Lloyd said yesterday Curtly Ambrose would have his first match of the tour, even though the big toe from which the nail had to be removed over the weekend is still a little tender.

The manager wasn't overly concerned about either Ambrose or the other half of the 300-wicket fast-bowling pair, Courtney Walsh, who twisted his ankle on the opening day at Kimberley last Saturday.

"Curtly is keen to get going and the old war horse Courtney only needs a few days' rest to be right," Lloyd said.

He was more concerned with the shoulder injury that has incapacitated Dinanath Ramnarine and prevented him from throwing effectively.

It is a problem he brought with him from the Caribbean and, even though it has seemingly not affected his bowling, he will need to prove as much in the Bloemfontein match.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul's leg-spin was used more than he is accustomed to against Grigualand West, possibly an indication that early thinking is for four fast bowlers for the first Test.

But, as Lloyd commented, Chanderpaul is not a front line bowler and "not one we would want to depend on".

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