IT was a bomb waiting to detonate, wreaking more damage to West Indies cricket that, after two decades of collapse, can hardly withstand any more.
After lying dormant for almost a year, its fuse was relit on Friday by head coach Phil Simmons’ furious criticism on the continued exclusion of Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard from the squad for three upcoming ODIs in Sri Lanka.
Ironically, Simmons was in an opposing camp when the explosive device was created in the aftermath of the team’s premature pull-out of its scheduled tour of India last October. Bravo and Pollard were dropped, without an official explanation, for the subsequent ODIs in South Africa and the World Cup.
It was assumed that Bravo was penalised as he was ODI captain in India; Pollard, in the rank and file, had his name seemingly drawn from a hat. In contrast, seven others from the Indian fiasco were retained for the World Cup. It typified the haphazard way West Indies cricket is run.
Their continued exile implies that they will be considered in future solely for T20s, for which they were chosen on the South African tour. Simmons’ beef, vented in a media session, was that, as head coach, he was denied the best team. He went further, alleging “outside interference” in the selection process.
“People shouldn’t be using their positions to get players into a squad or, in this, to get left out of a squad,” he said. “It is wrong.”
When the team exited India, WICB president Dave Cameron used social media to assert: “This feels like terrorism. You destroy a region’s heritage over an internal dispute. Unbelievable.” They were not the words that suggested conciliation.
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