Gray has T20 doubts
...former West Indies quick questions Andrew, Sampson picks
Tony Gray is questioning two selections in the West Indies T20 International squad for the upcoming five-match series in India. On Saturday, Cricket West Indies announced two 15-man squads for One-Day International (September 27-October 3) and T20I series (October 6-17) on the subcontinent. Included in both teams was former WI Under-19 batter Jewel Andrew, while Quentin Sampson of the Guyana Amazon Warriors was named to the T20I squad.
But former West Indies fast bowler and scout Gray is taking issue with the inclusion of Andrew and Sampson in the T20 team. In fact, when he played this year in the truncated (WI four-day) tournament, he failed dramatically. So I wouldn’t put him in the T20,” explained Gray. Andrew scored 66 runs in four innings for the St Lucia Kings in this year’s Caribbean Premier League (CPL) tournament. And Gray contended: “If you are looking to the future where he’s concerned, he has to play the longer version of the game. I would put him more in the One-Day game because batsmen, to me, the probability of them performing well, especially in the early stages of their career in the One-Day game is greater than in any other format because of different reasons... So when it comes to Jewel Andrew, I think he should not be playing the T20 format.”
In the case of big-hitter Sampson, Gray said the player had much to prove still. “Obviously he has some good hard-hitting ability, but we must not be mesmerized by the aesthetically pleasing shots, we want to see total batsmanship because the T20 game has evolved and I’m not sure that I would have picked him at this point because he has a long way to go,” Gray said. “He has not shown me enough to pick him for that team.” He noted further: “Daren Sammy has picked him for the World Cup, he didn’t play a game. And the series that preceded that, he didn’t play also, so why he’s back on the West Indies team after not a great performance at CPL level?”
Gray also felt former T20I skipper Rovman Powell could have been considered. “I think he could play the One-Day game still,” he said.