The senselessness of West Indies selection

Apr 28, 2011 Editorial

Cricket has been the unifying force in this region long before the West Indies Federation; long before the leaders got together to start the Caribbean Free trade Area that later became the Caribbean Common Market and Economy.
It was there before the turn of the Twentieth Century and indeed it was the flag around which the people of the region rallied. It mattered not from which island or territory the people came they all celebrated when the cricket team won.
Years after the game became the force it is, Regional leaders were proclaiming that cricket, as the unifying force, was proving to be the catalyst for every other regional undertaking. For example, the region has been involved in football and athletics. The success of the cricket team prompted some leaders to ask that future Olympic teams from the region be reflective of the region that of any particular country.
The leaders also spoke of a regional football team, a regional boxing team; in short all sporting teams should be representative of the region. Outside of cricket, the only other sport that is regional is rugby. The region fields a unified rugby team.
But it was cricket that set the tone for regional unity, albeit rather strangely. There was a time in the history of West Indies cricket when only White men could captain the team, when the selectors were all white and they exhibited a preference for White players and those of lighter complexion.
In those days we said nothing because we were adhering to the rules of the masters. But even these masters recognized talent and grabbed it when they could. So it was that the George Headleys and the Learie Constantines and the John Trims and Frank Worrell and Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott got into the team, but only long after they had made their mark and had proved their worth.
Today, there seems to be a new set of colonial masters who care nothing about skill or about the unifying force of West Indies cricket. It is as though they want to change legacy; they want to see the region as isolated as it could be. Sadly enough, they are promoting the opposite and killing the game at the same time.
Some two decades ago one group of administrators got up one morning and decided that some of the players were too old and that younger blood was needed in the team. At the time West Indies was still the dominant team. The selectors shook the tree violently and went for young players. The decline started then and continues to this day.
Rather than learn from the mistakes of the past the selectors are condemned to repeat them. They appear to have emerged from the swamp of idiocy because not only have they axed the best players but they seem bent on persisting with mediocrity.
Up to the last time West Indies played Test cricket the world, including people who helped make West Indies cricket the formidable object that it was, recognized that its bulwark and arguably its best batsman was Shivnarine Chanderpaul. This seems to have changed radically because the selectors have dumped Chanderpaul most unceremoniously.
They also dumped Ramnaresh Sarwan, the best player of spin in the region and the region’s most colourful batsman. He is the only player in cricketing history to score four centuries in the second innings, one of them when West Indies scored a world record 418 to beat Australia.
His crime, like Chanderpaul’s, was not scoring too many runs during the recent World Cup. But it must be noted that the leading run-scorer in that tournament only made the team because the other opener got injured. This player, Devon Smith, continues to be the Golden Boy.
But the most horrendous case of arrant incompetence or blatant arrogance was displayed when they dropped Chris Gayle, first as Captain of the team and then as the opening batsman for the limited over’s series.
We have seen Gayle explode since his discard and we wonder why. But above all we must now ask whether the selectors have something against the two Guyanese batsmen. They have spoken about indiscipline as though these boys are indisciplined. They have also spoken about building a young team by selecting players not much younger that Gayle and Sarwan.
We suspect that there is a lot not being said. What we do know is that the selectors are prepared to accept mediocrity to satisfy their personal prejudices.

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