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"Chairman of selectors Courtney Brown’s team is embarrassing West Indian fans and its time for him to go, while the Foreign Coaches are doing nothing for the team and there are enough great former players who understand the West Indian culture and are good enough be appointed Head Coach by CWI."

At 31, Leon Johnson will know that time is running out on his hopes off adding to the nine Test matches he has played.
The Guyanese left-hander from GCC, the oldest Cricket club in the West Indies, has led Guyana to every First Class title since Barbados won its last one in 2014 and with four consecutive titles to his name he is widely regarded as the best Captain in the Region.

But the former West Indies U-19 Captain will also know that while he is the best candidate for the job as Windies Captain, he must first earn his place in the team with plenty of runs in the 2018/2019 Regional First-Class which bowls off on Thursday.

Kraigg Braithwaite has lost all four of the Test matches since he took over the Captaincy from fellow Bajan Jason Holder who lost 15 off the 27 Tests he has been leading West Indies since 2015.
Braithwaith’s batting Average has dipped to 35.22 and he has not passed 13 in his last his four matches; against India and Bangladesh.
Under the combination of Holder and Braithwaite, Windies have only won seven matches and two series (against Zimbabwe & Bangladesh) in 12 series and four years.
As Johnson gets ready to play his 100th First Class match since making his debut in 2004 against the Leewards at Enmore on Thursday in St Lucia, he will not be only thinking of replacing Braithwaite as Captain but of reproducing the form he showed in the 2016 Regional season.

Johnson lasted played Test cricket in November 2016, scored the most runs (807) from 10 matches with an average of 57.6 with two centuries and five fifties in the 2016 domestic season.

read more at Kaieteur News

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In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

A mixed bag of an article.

Browne getting sacked, I agree with.

If Johnson scores runs then he should be considered, but regardless of his talent being better than his stats, he needs to improve his stats, every player could be considered to be better than what the stats say.

Foreign coaches not doing enough, can see his point but administrators block the best team from being played.

Crandon should probably be named assistant coach of the West Indies side when the new coach comes in.

I don't see too many coaches from the Caribbean getting employed around the World.

Would be nice to hear what makes them, good enough to be appointed as head coach?

I am surprised some have the illusion that performance of a discarded player will earn him a chance...

In reply to WICFan

Terrible article. The "writer" choose an old trick but his writing skills isn't sophisticated enough to pull it through as he attempted to promote the failed Johnson.

1. He start by stating how bad Browne is- well this is a truism and none sane person will disagree. He then stated another popular truism- WI greats can take this team and remove the foreigner.

Both arguments are popular so his readers are all in with him up to this point.

But alas his real intention is exposed- he isn't so much concerned about the two arguments above, as much as advocating for the Johnson recall using the very dump argument that Leon has won every tournament for the past few years.

He is conflating apples with oranges and he conveniently forgets to mention these victories by Guyana was not about how good they were but how bad were the others with at least 3 teams playing their B squad while Guyanese players prior to the current tour, were not good enough to make any of the already weak CWI team, save for 1 or 2.

In reply to Emir

Clicking on the link, the bit about Browne is actually at the bottom of the article.

The whole thing about domestic v foreign coaches, it's probably an even contest.

Hola....great call..and dont forget Barnwell as vice captain....after all he is a genuine all rounder...
all I can say is..steeeeeewps..Sean Devers buncks he head..
Oh why not Ronnie Sarwan as fitness coach???
Adios
CB

Joke of the year?

ah surprise Devers aint calling for Barnwell in the team too.. De worst sports journalist in Guyana!

Before he write something about the raw deal some young talented youngsters getting in the country he writing about ah washed up Johnson

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

What about his stats from the 2017 and 2018 seasons?

All joking aside, even Andrew Mason used to argue that Johnson was the best captain in the WI, and he promoted him over Holder too. However, jump high, jump low, Johnson simply does not make enough runs to challenge the selectors. If he could score runs like Devon Smith, then maybe he make the selectors notice him. Until then, his great captaincy skills will remain a myth at the test level.

800 runs minimum with 3-4 100s

nothing less

Test averages:

Kieran Powell 26 .... and dem persisting with him hoping!!
Shai Hope 28 .... and he is one of the untouchables!!
The great Devon 23 .... peeps saying he can do no worse!!

Why Johnson averaging 25 can't be in the argument? They are all a bunch of shytehounds IMO ....

In reply to Andy99

For what it's worth, 17/18:-

Johnson 17inns, 475 @ 27.94, 1 x 100, 3 x 50s.

16/17:-

Johnson 16inns, 323 @ 20.18, 0 X 100, 2 x 50s.

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com
The way the set-up is at present, the Test/ODI and T20 teams do not need a coach. Maybe someone to plan strategy, even though our players do not have the discipline or ability to follow a plan.
It is impossible to 'coach' anyone on a Tour. They get there a few days before the series and are given one match before the series starts. Then it is match, a few days, another match.
The coaching has to be done at school, under 15 and under 19 levels. That is where we need the best coaches.
As Antiguans say "no hard 'stone' man can be coached". Once the bad habits and poor techniques are ingrained, nothing can be changed during a series.

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

… and herein lies the real issue. 14 years to play 100 matches, and we wonder why WI behind!

In reply to natty_forever

Wasn't there a couple of years when the FC Tournament consisted of 5 or 6 games?

They really should get CCC & either USA or Canada involved in the Regional FC Tournament.

Another option could be the Regional FC Champions play Windies 'A' in a Challenge Cup best of 3 Series at the end of FC Season.

Australia can get away with 10 domestic FC games because a lot of their guys play County Season, same can't be said for the Windies.

In reply to Emir

Some people want the West Indies captain to be from their country. Therefore, they will try every trick in the book to get their wish.

In reply to Larr Pullo

Yuh see why insularity will always kill the west indies...............larr pullo bu really believe dat paragraph u write? Andrew Mason is now an authoority? Authority on idiocy. If its one cricket journalist whose opinion i take as a complete joke is Andrew Mason's. Sean Devers however completes the cake. Mason lil better than him.

In reply to Fivestar

Yep, reminds me of when a lot demanded that Ganga should have been Windies captain, for being a good captain

In reply to WICFan

yeah....reel talk.....at least ganga had two hundreds to his name against quality opposition.

In reply to WICFan

In reply to WICFan lot more than a couple, it has been a couple of years that it moved to 10. So we have addressed one issue in that we are playing more FC cricket (and your extra games also noted and should be adopted). Also we need an Academy or two, from which our A team squad should be selected from.

[b]In reply to WICFan[/

Tamar Lambert was a winning regional cappo who was being touted also.

In reply to NYCGURU… by who?

No true Guyanese cricket fan is pushing for Leon Johnson to play for the West Indies much less captain the team.Sean Devers deh pon S*&%$#!!!!!!

In reply to natty_forever

No point handing out retainers across the Caribbean if the plan isn't to have an Academy or two for the guys on retainers and for the youngsters.

[b]In reply to WICFan[/b


Have to agree 100 % with larr .

Johnson does not make enough runs to even be considered for selection..


devers smoking something strong.

In reply to WICFan… okay, there are no academies, so I ask what is required of those on Retainers? Are they not supervised "out of season"? In that are they not required to show that they have been working on their game during those times? Not wait until a tour is near, you form a one or 2 week camp and pick a side.

In reply to natty_forever

That's my point, what is being done outside of International Cricket for the guys on retainers?

Ambris, Paul & Reifer have development contracts, why not ask a County side if these 3 can train and use facilities with them at some stage of the County Season, they could extend that invitation to one or two regional coaches?

In reply to Pacy

The WI discarded Devon Smith and brought him back because he scored heavily in the regionals.

In reply to Larr Pullo

Best Captain at dung heap, placing best captain at the test level and watch the results, e.g Ganga, Sarwan, Shiv all shite their pants.

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

How the france he will Captain the West Indies ? We have a Captain already. His name is Jason Holder.Get off it !!!!

Darn. Johnson was terrible in his previous stint in WI cricket, despite a "good WI" average. Why in this world would anyone think that he would be better now? He has shown practically nothing more to recommend him since his previous WI stint.

In many ways, Johnson and Blackwood were similar - they achieved relatively decent batting averages thru reckless batting and enough luck. The difference is that Blackwood is still young enough to mend his ways.

Any thought of Johnson returning to WI cricket is pure doo-doo. Any thought of Johnson captaining WI is pure madness.

In reply to Norm

Totally agree with you, I think the person who wrote the article is a little out of touch, Hemraj have a better chance of making the team than Johnson, with Bravo returning batsmen who have ordinary numbers will have a challenging time making the team and rightly so.

In reply to dayne

Don't expect better from Devers.. de most bias reporter in Guyana!

Johnson and Barnwell are his boys

why are they beating a drum for Johnson inclusion that's a guy with five first class centuries after 170 innings and avg 32

In reply to tc1… but none a those were good captains at any level.