The West Indies Cricket Board recently named two teams to oppose the touring Bangladesh cricketers in a one-day game today in St. Vincent and a three-day game from May 22-24 in St George's Grenada. There are a number of things that immediately strikes you when looking at the composition of the two teams.
For starters there is no Marlon Samuels on either team. The stylish Jamaican and West Indies middle-order batsman recently returned to competitive cricket in Jamaica. Yet he has not yet been given a chance of resuming his promising career. Is there something here that the WICB is not letting on about Samuels?
Secondly, West Indies under-19 team's skipper Denish Ramdin has been preferred to batsman Wavell Hinds as captain of the one-day team. Is it that the selectors have seen something in young Ramdin? Hinds is a former vice-captain of the West Indies senior team so this raises the question of seniority? Again, if there was something about Hinds' leadership when he was WI vice-captain, the WICB should let it be known.
Also with the World Cup 2007 only a few years away why isn't it that batsmen like Dwayne Smith who has the obvious potential to develop into a special one-day player not be given every opportunity to help his development? Smith is included in the three-day team but not the one-day team.
The selectors should use every opportunity to give players who might be the nucleus of the World Cup squad every opportunity to help their development. It was heartening to note that seven batsmen recently took part in a batting camp. But the section of players on representative West Indies teams continue to be baffling.
And why is Ramdin in the one-day team when the very team has Carlton Baugh jnr. widely regarded as Ridley Jacobs' heir-apparent. Will Ramdin play as a batsman and allow Baugh to do the wicketkeeping duties or will Baugh be left out? Certainly Ramdin is not the best young 'keeper out there. That accolade should go to Tyrell Tull. But Ramdin is much more dependable especially with the bat.
Concerning the composition of the three-day team why wasn't Wavell Hinds considered? And again, Sylvester Joseph as captain is a bit of surprise although, like Ramdin, he is a former West Indies under-19 skipper to the youth World Cup.
It was good however to see the re-emergence of all-rounder Omari Banks and fast bowler Jermaine Lawson. West Indies selection policies continues to be baffling rather than straightforward. It is no wonder that despite the presence of several talented players in the regional side that the West Indies are in eighth position on 80 points a full 14 points adrift from Sri Lanka in seventh with only Zimbabwe and Bangladesh behind them.