Final thoughts prior to the final 15
Thu, May 23, '19
With the deadline for teams to confirm their final 15-man squads being tomorrow, May 23rd, Caribbean fans are no doubt looking forward to several changes to the current West Indies squad. Particularly in the wake of West Indies’ display in the just-concluded Ireland Tri-Series and no less, following the feeble batting display against Australia earlier this morning. The fans were given an idea of the players who will be drafted into the team, if any, when the West Indies released a reserves list of ten players for the Cricket World Cup. These ten players being Sunil Ambris, Dwayne Bravo, John Campbell, Jonathan Carter, Roston Chase, Shane Dowrich, Keemo Paul, Khary Pierre, Raymon Reifer, and Kieron Pollard.
With the squad already seemingly a specialist batsman short, the frustrating form of Darren Bravo is growing exponentially worrying. Bravo--whose scores, in the relevant format since returning to international cricket last September have been 19, 27, 10, 40, 25, 61, 7, 9, 1, 17, 6 and 3--has gotten into double figures once since the squad was announced. More bemusing? The fact that the West Indies has the choice to make changes to the squad--at a time when the likes of John Campbell and Sunil Ambris have been knocking on the door with their recent performances--and the left-hander has failed to muster any courage to put up a fight for his place, by way of putting together a single decent innings since being named among those headed to England/Wales.
Also under pressure is Captain, Jason Holder. While Holder still has the support of many Caribbean fans, the fact that the "lanky" all-rounder has failed to lead our nation to a single series win since his appointment as ODI captain in 2014, has not gone unnoticed. In fact, this statistic has been one of the narratives following the West Indies squandering a colossal opportunity to give the Captain his first series-win, when they handed Bangladesh the Tri-Series trophy in Ireland, last Friday.
The West Indies selection panel is accountable, however, having left the death-bowling department void of a single player when choosing this World Cup squad. And this was, without a shadow of a doubt, the undoing of the men in maroon in the Tri-Series finale. There was a stark difference in the way in which the Bangladeshi bowlers approached the final three overs of the West Indian innings--following the rain interruption--and the ‘tactics’ the West Indies bowlers used when trying to restrict Bangladesh to under two-hundred and ten (210) runs from their twenty-four (24) overs. Try as Holder did indeed try, it just was not his day with the variations. And there was no one else (of those headed to England) to aid the cause. It took the man playing in his second One Day International to execute the variations - Raymon Reifer.
There is still a chance, however, for the West Indies selection panel to redeem themselves from this oversight. This, with the inclusion of Keemo Paul and Dwayne Bravo, who are both listed as reserves for the World Cup.
West Indies awaiting the eleventh hour is nothing new for fans of the Caribbean and so we patiently await the news of the confirmed fifteen to represent us at the twelfth staging of the tournament we won on our first two tries.
