Dr. Anthony questions non selection of senior WI players

Apr 17, 2011 Sports

Letter dispatched to Chairman of Selectors Clyde Butts

Honorable Minister of Sport Dr. Frank has dispatched a letter to chairman of Selectors of the West Indies Cricket Board Clyde Butts questioning and seeking answers on the non-selection of Guyanese players Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
Kaieteur Sports was able to secure a copy of the letter; following is the full context of the document sent to Butts.
Dear Chairman of Selectors,
Confident that both of us are seized with the commitment to the most positive development of West Indies Cricket, I write to seek some fundamental clarifications from you on behalf of my Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport and, indeed, the entire sporting and cricketing public of Guyana.
During the past week beginning with the most malicious mischievous and unfounded information related to West Indian Cricketer, Guyanese Ramnaresh Sarwan being published on an Internet Blog – many serious, even provocative issues about the selection of a current West Indian Team have been given widespread coverage in the regional media.
Reasons advanced by yourself and your CEO Dr. Ernest Hillaire with respect to the selection and/or omission of certain players have been carefully noted. I have – grappled –unsuccessfully— with your stated rationale for omitting from the ODI squad to face Pakistan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan, especially.
The recent records of Sarwan, particularly, confound all your reasons for identifying “the core of players who (we) will build the team around”; by dropping him. By standards of both fitness and statistics both Sarwan and Chanderpaul should have retained their ODI places. This is not only “Opinion” but conclusions built on the facts of performance.
Reports have reached my Ministry about the method used by your’ Committee to “invite” Shivnarine Chanderpaul” to retire from Limited Overs Cricket; about earlier tensions between the players dropped and Coach Otis Gibson; about non-cricket allegations against Sarwan and about an alleged preference for the underperforming Darren Sammy.
Whilst I cannot deem all of those reported issues as valid, they have certainly fuelled the PERCEPTION AND SUSPICION (in Guyana at least) that just purely professional selection criteria were not at play for your just -concluded decisions.
AGAINST THAT BACKGROUND THEREFORE, I ask of you, just as a courtesy to this Ministry, to outline your selection criteria for the players just omitted from the West Indies Squad. It would also be useful, I respectfully submit, if you would offer a comment from your Board’s perspective, on whether the Players just omitted have any future chances of being included in a West Indies team, based on recent reputation and current form.
Thanks for your consideration, as I await confidently, the courtesy of an informative response.
Yours in cricket

Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony, M.P., Minister