Letter to Sports Editor ...Analyzing Darren Sammy’s test captaincy era

Letter to Sports Editor …Analyzing Darren Sammy’s test captaincy era

May 21, 2014 Sports

Dear Sports Editor,
The Darren Sammy test captaincy experiment which lasted 1278 days is finally over.
West Indies cricket has suffered many horrible moments, since their decline started after the 1995 home series against Australia. However the Sammy era of captaincy, especially in the test format, has to go down as one of the most unedifying sagas.
Sammy became captain in a very frivolous manner. He never earned the right to be skipper based on any domestic performances for the Windward Islands.
At the height of the players/WICB/WIPA controversy in 2010, two St Lucians were running WICB (President Julian Hunte and Chief Executive Officer – Ernest Hillaire) and Sammy somehow got the captaincy, after Chris Gayle was removed.
From this point, Sammy became one of the most illegitimate captains in West Indies history. His non merit rise, to this distinguished position, can only be compared to the 1950s, when the then leaders of the cricket board appointed a procession of white captains, instead of allowing, Sir Frank Worrell to lead the team earlier than the famous 60/61 tour to Australia due to the colour of his skin.
Gayle’s aforementioned controversy that saw him banned for a year along with issues with players such a Bravo and Pollard refusing to sign contracts, showed how poorly the board run by Hillaire, adjusted to the T20 revolution worldwide.
The recent International Cricket Council (ICC) revamp showed, India, England and Australia are the financial powerhouses of world cricket. Every other nation is weak financially. Therefore players from South Africa, Windies, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe would always jump at opportunity to cash in on the lofty financial remunerations that IPL/T20 leagues offered.
IPL has affected the Windies cricket home/domestic cricket since it started in 2008. For the first time this year in history, the Windies will be playing New Zealand and Bangladesh during the rainy/hurricane seasons and the month of September.
WICB has finally accepted that they can’t fight the IPL and has noticeably in the last two seasons prevented its international season from clashing with the IPL.
Sammy’s test record as captain was: 30 tests, 1032 runs, average 22.44 & 57 wickets, average 39.61. During his tenure, like the proverbial man with a short blanket on a cold night, the West Indies cricket team was constantly forced to either lighten its bowling or batting attack to include him.
From a Guyanese perspective I would argue, this unbalanced nature of the test team’s bowling attack, resulted in Devendra Bishoo being ridiculously over bowled and his decline.
Sammy does deserve sympathy though. He didn’t ask to be captain, he like any player who is given such an honour, did the job to the best of his ability.
That’s why the selection panel led by Guyanese – Clyde Butts should be blamed for continuously picking him in tests – Sammy didn’t pick himself.
Sammy also was not to blame for the batsmen’s inability in test cricket to construct big test innings and the overall mental fragility the team shows in the longer format, leading to the West Indies team being labelled a “T20 team”.
Now that Sammy is gone I believe a possible full strength West Indies test XI of: Gayle, K Edwards, Bravo, Samuels, Chanderpaul, DW Bravo, Ramdin, Narine, Holder, Taylor, Roach can challenge test cricket’s elites, once they play to potential.
Colin Benjamin

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Letter to Sports Editor …Analyzing Darren Sammy’s test captaincy era

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