West Indies opening batsman Kieran Powell has resurfaced.
Or has he?
In a lengthy statement released by the 24-year-old Nevisian late this evening, he sought to explain his absence from regional and international cricket since the first Test against New Zealand in June last year.
Powell said he had a meeting with West Indies team manager Richie Richardson and then coach Otis Gibson at the Jamaica Pegasus last year where he requested to take a break from international cricket to deal with a personal issue. West Indies opening batsman Kieran Powell
West Indies opening batsman Kieran Powell
“The conversation concluded with Mr. Richardson and Mr. Gibson conveying their understanding and stating that they hoped that I would return to the West Indies squad as soon as I was available to do so. I had then relayed a detailed account of that same conversation, in writing, to my own management, so as to have made them aware of my actions.
Subash Jayaraman: Your ESPNcricinfo profile reads: "It wasn't until his fourth coming in the international carer that he truly made his mark against the mighty Australians with back-to-back hundreds." Why do you think it took you so long to get comfortable?
Daren Ganga: If you look at my career, you will see I was virtually plucked out of school cricket and got to play international cricket from a very young age. I would have played just one full season of first-class season for Trinidad and Tobago. In 1997-98, I scored a hundred against Barbados and a half-century against Courtney Walsh and Franklin Rose's Jamaican team. I was selected for West Indies' first tour to South Africa post-apartheid. That was in 1998-99. I was 19. Really, the selection should have offered me the opportunity to learn more about the intensity of international cricket and what was required to be successful. Looking back, I got the opportunity to play, and I don't regret having that opportunity - that made me a strong player.
I travelled a lot initially in my career and I struggled because I was still learning my trade at the highest level. A lot of players make their international Test debut after playing about 60 to 70 first-class matches. That was not the case for me.
Before I really started to realise my potential, I never got the opportunity to play in the conditions in which I had honed my skills. It took me 17 Test matches before I played my first Test in the Caribbean, and that is where I scored my first Test hundred.
2015 will bring a significant but painful anniversary for West Indies cricket. It will mark 20 years since the West Indies team was beaten by Australia at home and lost top position in Test cricket.
No real follower of West Indies cricket will ever forget the wicket keeper, Courtney Browne, dropping a simple catch off Australian Steve Waugh at Sabina Park.
We could not remain world champions forever but no lover of West Indies cricket would, in his or her darkest nightmare, have dreamt that 20 years later we would be languishing miserably at the bottom of the pile with no sign of progress.
In that period, we have seen Australia rise and fall three times. We have seen England rise and fall and India the same. We have seen South Africa, who in 1995 had not long returned to Test cricket, produce a number of top-class teams. These teams are tired of whipping us. Our team has gone from bad to worse and is now close to terminally ill.
Was speaking the other day to a coach with an eye for detail. He was telling me about a young cricketer whose career he has been following since he worked with him briefly a couple years ago. He has noticed that the batsman, still on the fringes of the national senior team, has been scoring less and less runs since his breakout year at youth level.
He watched the young man a bit, and noticed that he repeatedly hit the ball square of the wicket, never straight, and that his feet didn’t really get to the pitch of the ball. Upon inquiry, he found out that the youngster actually worked with a coach. But those sessions were limited ones.
Sooner rather than later however, this batsman will likely get more games at senior level, and may even become a regular.
Yesterday, as I read some of West Indies Test captain Denesh Ramdin’s post defeat comments in South Africa, I was reminded of that conversation, especially when he said: “We have young players who did well and can hopefully take a lot of experience from the series and learn from the South Africans how to go about it”, referring to Kraigg Brathwaite, Shannon Gabriel, Leon Johnson, and Jermaine Blackwood.
Ramdin’s concession comes as West Indies slumped to their seventh straight series loss to South Africa, losing the third Test by eight wickets at Newlands yesterday.
“Everyone expected Shiv and myself to get some more runs. Shiv has been doing it for the past six or seven years that I have been around,” said the West Indies skipper, who has not been able to build on the form he showed over the last two years.
