BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) – The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has adopted a tough, new policy towards the captaincy of the regional team, as it seeks a fresh approach in the wake of a wretched Cricket World Cup campaign.
Bruce Aanensen, the WICB’s newly-appointed chief executive, told CMC Sports the board had met with members of the selection committee Monday and had outlined their expectations.
“We had agreed and discussed at an executive meeting some time ago that West Indies cricket at this point in time cannot be business as usual and the incremental changes that we have tried to make over time that have not worked and do not seem as if they will work, cannot be the way forward and that some hard decisions may have to be made in terms of how we do business going forward,” Aanensen said.
“We just wanted to brief the selectors in the composition of the team and in the decision to choose a captain – what we were looking for, what kind of criteria we would like them to use for the selection of the captain and when they give us recommendations for the captain we need to know exactly what drove that decision.
“(We need to know) what they see as the strengths of the individual, why they recommended them and if they are any areas where improvement is required, what are these areas so we can sit down with the person who is eventually appointed so we can go through that process with them and agree on a formula for helping them to improve in their weak areas and also strengthening their sound areas and clearly outlining to the captain what the expectations of the board are of a West Indies captain.”
The captaincy position of the West Indies team was made vacant recently following Brian Lara’s retirement from international cricket.
Since that development, vice-captain Ramnaresh Sarwan has been widely tipped to take over as captain though Chris Gayle and Daren Ganga have also been tipped to get the nod.
Aanensen said the selectors had already made their nomination to the board who were in the process of ratifying the recommendation.
“One of the things we are looking for is leadership skills … we are also looking at a guy who will command the respect of the other players on the team, not somebody who will have any influence on the younger players in particular,” Aanensen said.
“The selectors have chosen somebody … I’m not a liberty to divulge that name at the moment because we have to get the approval of the WICB for the nomination before any disclosure can be made.
“The selectors said there were three people they were looking at. They had their meeting, we did not attend their meeting, we allowed them the privacy to discuss matters as they see fit.
“They have come up with one of the three … hopefully we can announce (him) within the next two days.”