THE West Indies’ withdrawal woes continued yesterday as their fastest bowler, 21-year-old Jermaine Lawson, came down with chicken pox and was ruled out of the second Cable & Wireless Test against Australia, starting at the Queen’s Park Oval on Saturday.
Seeking to replace real pace with real pace, the selectors immediately called up the uncapped Tino Best, another 21-year-old tearaway who was the season’s leading wicket-taker in the domestic Carib Beer Series for champions Barbados.
At the same time, Ridley Jacobs, wicket-keeper in all but one of the West Indies’ last 48 Tests since his debut in 1998, was definitely eliminated after an examination by Dr. Terry Ali of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) medical panel, on his torn groin muscle, sustained in the first innings of the first Test in Georgetown.
Manager Ricky Skerritt said Lawson would fly back to Jamaica on Wednesday but hoped he would recover in time for the third Test in Barbados May 1-5.
Jacobs remains on in Trinidad to start restorative work on his injury before returning to Antigua on Saturday.
The latest setbacks mean that the West Indies are could have the unusually high ratio of three of their eleven on debut - Carlton Baugh, the diminutive, 20-year-old Jamaican who was already in the squad as backup for Jacobs, Omari Banks, also 20, the Leeward Islands off-spinner who was included in the squad on Monday, and Best.
Baugh is now certain of his place. Best’s additional pace makes him a virtually automatic choice. And, with Marlon Samuels making way for the returning Ramnaresh Sarwan, Banks would be the only spinning option on a parched pitch after the longest dry period in Trinidad and Tobago for 30 years.
Lawson is the fourth West Indian to already become unavailable in the series.
Dismissed captain Carl Hooper pulled out of the squad for the first Test which new vice-captain Sarwan missed through strained ligaments in his left index finger. He is now fit again and ready to play Saturday.
Lawson’s illness can be sourced to his Jamaican teammates, Ricardo and Darren Powell.
Ricardo missed the semi-final of the Carib Beer Series against Guyana after contracting the ailment and Darren Powell, whom roomed with Lawson during the match, came down with it after that match and missed the final against Barbados.
Skerritt said most of the team were immune as they had had the disease already. Those who haven’t have been prescribed preventitive medication
Best is the ready-made replacement for Lawson.
Batsmen rate him slightly quicker, speed that earned him 39 Carib wickets at 18.25 runs each. Among them was West Indies captain Brian Lara for 0 in the semi-final against Trinidad and Tobago.
Unlike the tall, strapping Lawson, he is relatively short for a fast bowler at five feet, 11 inches but strong and muscular, delivering from a fast run-up and energetic action.
A nephew of the former West Indies batsman Carlisle Best, he is an enthusiastic competitor and a favourite with the crowds. But his brief career is not free of controversy.
He was fined by the disciplinary committee of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) on the strength of manager Joel Garner’s report on the West Indies ‘A’ team tour of England and Canada last year and twice debarred under the law for bowling two beamers in an innings in the Carib Beer Series against Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
He apologised to the teams and was adamant that they were not intentional.
“I was trying for too much pace. I was just trying to finish the innings as quickly as possible,” he said in an interview. “I was trying to bowl a yorker. People always tell me that, with my pace, if I can get a yorker going, I would be devastating. The balls just slipped.”
Had the selectors sought experience, they had three options.
The in-form Corey Collymore had five wickets in an innings for Barbados in both the Carib Beer Series semi-final and final after return from the World Cup, Trinidad and Tobago’s Marlon Black took 30 wickets in the tournament, and the Leeward Islands’ Adam Sanford, who had 28.
But they have gone for raw pace and, as with Baugh, Banks and new opener Devon Smith, youth.
They all now face the toughest opposition in the business.