The Independent Voice of West Indies Cricket
Under-19 World Cup skipper Dinesh Ramdin has been named captain of the West Indies 'B' team for next months' Carib Cup Series.
Ramdin joins Lendl Simmons, Assad Fudadin and Mervyn Matthew as the four Under-19 players in the 'B' team for the first two rounds of the competition. The 'B' team, comprised mainly of leftover Under-23 players, opens the competition against Kenya in St Kitts on January 9.
Within an hour on the first day, South Africa snatched the advantage and never let up. After the 17/4 top order debacle, the West Indies were never in this match. In the field, shoulders sagged and heads drooped and a big defeat was inevitable.
There were some morale-boosting performances in between -- Drakes' batting, Jacobs' reliability and the second innings centuries from Sarwan and Chanderpaul but, all in all, this was a nightmare from the very beginning. Here's my report card (tough, but fair):
I have said it before and I will say it again, the current state of West Indies cricket has little to do with the players who represent with the regional team. Rather, I believe that the blame lies with the administrators of the West Indian game and their indifference towards the total success of the team.
Management (of a lack thereof) is inept within the regional teams and is blatantly evident within the regional senior team. The West Indies board seems intent on making money as opposed to developing the cricket, electing board officials who are too far removed from the game to appreciate the impact of the what the pathetic excuse of a West Indies team is having on the psyche of West Indians.
Windwards Islands Cricket is stuck in the doldrums not because of the conspiring influences of greater powers but because of rampant disorganisation and surprisingly, petty politics at the island level.
At the completion of what turned out to be a substandard competition in Dominica, where observers were able to note that a decent local club team could compete with the island teams, so disorganised and indisciplined their approach to games, the Windwards squad was announced. Let us examine the current Windwards situation...
Carlton Baugh is set to walk in Jeffrey Dujon's footsteps -- literally.
The Jamaican wicketkeeper-batsman has been named in the West Indies 12-man squad for the second Test against South Africa and will make the final eleven purely as a batsman. Baugh joined fast bowler Adam Sanford and left-arm wrist spinner Dave Mohamed as the changes for the Boxing Day Test.