It's Time to Drop Sarwan

Selectors seem to have a collective mind that defies logic. Ramnaresh Sarwan looks very good but only occasionally produces what is expected of him.

Sarwan undoubtedly is a very good prospect (even though he has already played 23 Tests and is still a prospect). He has been batting well for modest scores and getting out to poor shot selection. He fields brilliantly and is undoubtedly one for the future, if he is handled well.

Where does this boy bat? At number three for the West Indies!

Meanwhile three better equipped and more experienced players are held back to repair the damage. How much better would it be if Lara, Hooper and Chanderpaul batted ahead of Sarwan so that, when he came to the wicket the score would be healthy? Instead when he and the shaky openers and are dismissed, Lara, Hooper and Chanderpaul have to fight a rear guard battle to repair the damage and revive the fortunes of the team.

If Sarwan is allowed to continue in the mode he is now, he would lose his urge to be better.

What is needed is for Sarwan to be dropped until he begins to produce what is expected of him. If he regroups and improves his output that would be good for West Indies cricket. If he gives up in pique that is just as well. What is needed are players who not only put out their best performance but play as though the opposition would only win over their dead bodies. That is not Sarwan at this point. He has just been dismissed, injudiciously hooking at a delivery from Bond and caught at midwicket - as he had been in Trinidad against South Africa, in Barbados against the same opposition and in some soft ways against the Indians.

Many people make the disappointing remark "well who you would put in his place?" Wonder what we would do if he broke an arm?

Runako Morton is probably the leader of the pack, a determined, aggressive player a very good athlete and useful as a change bowler and brilliant fieldsman.

Perhaps, bringing him in at Sarwan's expense could lead to a more judicial approach to batting from the young Guyanese.

I would also like the selectors to tell me what Mahendra Nagamootoo is doing in the current squad.

There is need for a genuine spin bowler in the West Indies attack but how the selectors came to Nagamootoo really is a puzzle. Nagamootoo does not appear to be a Test class spin bowler.

To date he has played in three Tests and has taken seven wickets at about 50 runs each. In the last match he took one wicket for 103 runs against India.

Since then he has been incapacitated by first, a hamstring strain and then, by injury sustained in a motor accident. He has played no competitive cricket since, yet has been included ahead of Dinanath Ramnarine, who was in the Test squads for the series against India.

Ramnarine, on the other hand, has played in 12 Tests for the Windies and has taken 45 wickets for about 30 runs each.

Can the fact that the skipper is a Guyanese be a factor in Nagamootoo's favour?

Does the captain have such sway in selectoral matters? Have we gone back to the basest insularity that beset the region's cricket pre-independence?

SOURCE: This article was republished from the Trinidad Guardian