Cricket selectors should not ignore a rich vein of form for spurious reasons.

Lead selector of West Indies teams Desmond Haynes, along with the two other selectors – coach Darren Sammy and assistant selector Roland Butcher – conspired to choose a team without, at present, by sheer production of runs and irreplaceable experience, the best batsman in the West Indies.

Darren Bravo has scored the most runs by a distance – 416 runs at an average of 83 per innings.

On observing studiously the way he played in this recent Super50 tournament, in addition to his classy batting of last year 2022, one could notice the new-found maturity in his batting and, dare I say, in his leadership.

Read more at Newsday

Great article…

Courtesy reading this?

A very unbiased source:lol

One of the best and most balanced articles I have read in recent times. In my opinion the only thing that’s missing is, although he called the three selections by name he didn’t give any reason why they were weak. So let me take a guess:
1. Desmond Haynes sued WICB for dropping him when he was age 39. Only in the WI you could sue your employer and come back holding a top position
2 Roland Butcher.aka “our boy but their bat” A Bajan by birth but played his cricket in England and for England. He should be an English selector.
3. Daren Sammy: Wasn’t he the captain of the test team when Bravo left the tour ? Did Sammy had anything to do with his withdrawal? Maybe he too should not hold his position because he will definitely discriminate against Daren Bravo

Trinidad Express Garth Wattley - Pick Apart the Bravo Pickle

Bear with me a little.

Just ponder a while on these statements on Darren Bravo by West Indies lead selector Desmond Haynes.

October 2022:

“We would just like for Bravo to get back in some form and playing for his franchise in Trinidad will probably help. His recent form, really he’s not performing well and as a new group of selectors, we made it very clear that we’re going to give opportunities to people and try to broaden the pool and make sure we start thinking about 2023 as well,” Haynes said.”

February 2023:

“I think we in the Caribbean don’t have the luxury to really talk about age not being on someone’s side. If someone is doing very well in our competition, I think his name must come up for selection,...

“I think Bravo has proven he can play cricket at the highest level and it is just a matter of if we can get the guys that are really committed and who really want to play. But Bravo is a class act,...

“He has done well at Test level and he had a period where he just lost his form and so forth but we know that Bravo is good enough to make runs at this level and we will continue to monitor Bravo’s progress as he goes along in this four-day competition.

November 2023:

“Darren has proven not only this year but last year in the Super50 tournament, to be somebody who performs well at this level.

“But we have invested in players like Alick Athanaze and Keacy Carty, and we just figured that in selecting this team, we also had to take into consideration that the World Cup 2027 is something that we’ve got in mind.

“And we believe we’ve invested in these players and believe we should give them the opportunity of playing against a very strong England side.”

These comments, made within the space of 12 months, illustrate what the real problem is with the selection of the One-Day team to face England, starting on the weekend.

Bravo’s performances over the last three regional tournaments - two Super50 and one Four-Day Championship series - have suggested that the player has done what the lead selector has asked of him. Bravo has been among the leading scorers in each of those tournaments and in doing so, showed the consistency of performance and commitment that Haynes said the selectors were looking for from players like him.

What is more, in February, Haynes said, “we in the Caribbean don’t have the luxury to really talk about age not being on someone’s side.”

Yet in November, Bravo’s age is offered as one of the factors leading to his non-selection for the England ODIs.

So what is really going on lead selector?

More than enough has already been said about the inclusion of players like Kjorn Ottley and Yannic Cariah, who are of similar age to Bravo.

But those inclusions highlight either one of two things. It is either that there is some other unspoken reason for excluding the Red Force captain, or the selectors are not clear on how to move the team forward.

I would like to think it is the latter. And their inconsistency is raising more questions than answers and doing nothing to instil confidence in the selection process.

Bravo’s not being in the ODI team is not the real problem here, dear reader; rather it is the inconsistency in policy.

If the goal is on building for the World Cup with a young group of players, then the likes of Ottley should not be included, even as a back-up.

Such an approach could be criticised but at least the selectors could not be accused of lacking focus.

As it is however, the mixed signals sent by this squad given selector Haynes’ own explanation for the choices, leave room for unhealthy speculation.

It also can’t give players in the Caribbean a clear idea of where they stand.

And it is that kind of uncertainty that can encourage cricketers to more readily commit to playing in franchise tournaments than taking up West Indies assignments. Players don’t like playing on sticky wickets.

As someone with a long and illustrious history of serving West Indies cricket, it would be unfair to question the Most Honourable Dr Desmond Haynes’ desire to do what is best for the international teams.

The body of evidence to the contrary would have to be overwhelming.

For now, that is not the case. But with the second year of his two-and-a-half-year term almost up, the lead selector and his colleague Roland Butcher need to do some careful thinking.

It remains a reality that the WI selectors have to pick from a pool of average performers. It is the reason why Bravo, already with a full career at age 34, is still, statistically at least, a contender for a spot in both the red-ball and white-ball sides.

Picking a competitive WI team therefore remains a difficult thing, with no one set of choices necessarily being better than another set.

But instilling confidence in the selection process is one way the decision-makers can help to stabilise what happens on the field.

“I am confident that Desmond is the right man for the right job, at the right time,” former Cricket West Indies president Ricky Skerritt said at Haynes’ appointment in January of 22.

It would be fascinating to know whether Skerritt’s successor Kishore Shallow feels that way now.

The WI displays over the next few months here in the Caribbean and Down Under in Australia could provide the answer to the “right man” question.

garth.wattley@trinidadexpress.com

In reply to Sylobaby

Good comments

Desmond Haynes is the wrong man

In reply to Sylobaby

Only in the West Indies you could call your employer a big idiot and then bawl for selection

In reply to brians_da_best

The big idiot cannot be an employer in a democracy- In the US, rich men own teams but are disciplined for infractions

This is what happens in non-cavemen country, Vere Bird

In reply to velo

Very very much unbiased (in my Trump's voice with the handwork too) lol