No Meaning to W.I Selections

It was suggested by the selection of Omari Banks, affirmed when Fidel Edwards was picked, and now confirmed by the elevation of Dwayne Smith that performance is irrelevant as a criteria for section to the West Indies team.

Viv Richards and company have really gone out on a limb with this selection, bypassing such notables as Devon Smith, who must now be wondering which cricket God he has offended, Narsingh Deonarine, Brenton Parchment, and even Kurt Wilkinson.

Boasting a very modest first class record of 14 matches (avg. 22.80), Smith is a right-hand bat and medium pace bowler who has been dropped on more than one occasion from the Barbadian team. In regional one-day cricket, his stats are marginally better -- avg. 39.15 from five matches -- with a highest score of 92 against Guyana in this years Red Stripe Bowl. Without that 92, his average would hover somewhere around the unflattering 16.67.

Before we accuse our selectors of being in the lyrical parlance of the reggae performers Kiprich and Predator, "Mad. Sick head nuh good", this illustrates the lack of quality replacements available to the West Indies team, and the apparent distrust that the selectors have for our first class system.

It's obvious the selectors are making a statement to the various regional boards that the West Indies first class cricket structure is garbage, and they're ignoring performance there and making picks on gut feeling more than anything else. When allied with the fact that the vice captain of the West Indies team cannot captain his own territorial team, one can conclude that our cricketing structure is almost irretrievably broken.

This isn't to say that Dwayne Smith may not have what it takes to set the world alight, but what are the chances? Consider too how the other players currently playing and preparing for the upcoming first class season must view this latest bombshell from the selectors, they may as well invest a few dollars in a lotto ticket, because hanging their hats on a professional cricketing career in the Caribbean has about as much chance of success as winning the national lottery.

If the West Indies are to revisit their former halcyon days, meaning has to be restored to the first class level. This would require both the involvement of the regional boards and WIPA, whose president has been a victim of the curious selection policies of late.

The selectors must select the best team from the best available players. This means the policy of selecting teenagers to play test cricket has to be shelved immediately. No longer should consistent performance at the first class be sacrificed at the altar of youth, especially if the youths are clearly not physically and mentally ready.

Test cricket may be many things, but it is not a learning environment. Players should again be forced to earn their places through consistency and outstanding performance. If this means that our current first class system has to be blown up and rebuilt, so be it.

To this end, WIPA should seek to establish a less adversarial relationship with the board, and work with them towards establishing a more open first class structure where players would be allowed to move between territories, and the first class season be extended by at least two months.

Meaning must be put back into our cricketing structure, so that youths who choose cricket as a professional career shouldn't feel that their careers are subject to the whims and fancies of the selectors. After all, why work hard at your craft, and try to score runs in the games when a player could be selected on the strength of a good net practice session, or a one-off one day slugfest where the bowlers are by rule, forced to groove the ball for the batsmen to hit?

As it stands, when one sees selections like this once can only surmise that the expert selectors must have some commitment to the manifest destiny of the West Indies team, in that we belong at the top in spite of all signs to the contrary. Ignoring all this, one can hope and pray, as a fan, that Mr. Smith hits the ground running and the runs flow like rain off the bat, but to quote the great Anglo-Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, "Not bloody likely!"