For quite some time now, it has been difficult to understand some of the choices the West Indies selectors have been making, but this has become even more pronounced in recent years, and more particularly with the current squad chosen for the one-day series in Pakistan.

At the time of writing this article, the West Indies have just lost the second one-day match against Pakistan, after the first was washed out, in a closely fought low scoring encounter.
Full Story

Still more questions than answers

I believe Shiv refused to bat in the middle

I believe Lara wanted to open wid Simmons and Shiv seh.....nah....alyuh doan start using me again like a YO YO AGAIN....ah not batting in the middle....well we know what bappened after

... crap!

Another excellent article. I agree with most of the points highlighted.

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

What is an extended run? How do people get it, the run, I mean? Do they just have to make runs to get an extended run, or must they have a non-fairy Godfather? Where are all those godfathers from? What countries and ethnicities do they possess? Is their a heaven for insularity? How many Godfathers should there be for us to succeed? Might there be an inverse relationship between the numbers of Godfathers and the number of matches won? Or is there an inverse relationship between extended runs given to undeserving players and the total runs made in 1.5 matches? Is this situation (waiting in vain for an extended run) peculiar to the West indies? Why did Australia keep Hussey back for so long befor giving him an extended run? Is the sitution with Deonarine similar to Hussey? How consistent are these players over the long run? What's the point then?

In reply to jaydee

Where was "extended" mentioned? :roll:

In reply to Gupta
my apologies - I reconstructed decent to extended. Decent is a bit subjective, isn't it? Can a decent run be brief? Or an extended run be indecent? Just asking . . . :twisted:

In the year 2003 on this very MB when the Selectors selected a fairly young team , I applauded their forward thinking .

I did so because I was of the opinion that by the time 2007 rolled around WE would have possibly the youngest team , seasoned by playing many matches , cohesive , confident , with good cricketing skills in all aspects of the game .

However , in 2004 , after suffering several defeats , that stratergy changed , the Captain said in effect that there was room for older players , that then started the return of older players .

In my post I mentioned that the youngsters would probably lose more games than win games , but in my opinion , the purpose of selecting a young team was to have them by 2006 battle ready in all aspects of the game .

As I stated the Selectors changed horses in midstream , and as we all can see , the team has lost more games than they have won .

In someone's post either today or yesterday I mentioned that The Masters of Disasters were prepared to save money rather than select the best possible team .

I hope that people now realize that when I saw that Cricket in the Region cannot ,and will not improve until there is a new entity governing cricket in the Region it is true .

Every single day WE are provided with tangible evidence of the incompetence of the WICB aka The Pirates of the Caribbean , aka The Masters of Disasters .

But we deserve our fate , since we do not protest or demonstrate our disgust . As I have always stated those who should help in an effort to rid us of the Pirates , the pseudo sports journalists are in bed with the Pirates .

The only course left to us in the Region is to have the Regional Governments step in and reorganize the whole structure of Cricket in the Region .

Regards ... . POINT .

In reply to POINT
Yes, but what is "old"? [As Pilate would have said] And can we use "old" as a criteria of selection in cricket? Is "old" important when playing in different conditions and on different pitches? Might "old" be correlated to better technique? Is Hussey old? Is MacGrath older? How old is Warne? Remember when an "old" Andy Roberts was dropped despite a good shell shield? Was that fair? What is fair?

In reply to jaydee

The gist of what I am saying is that had the selectors persisted with the youngsters despite losses , I firmly believe that by now they would have started winning matches on a regular basis .

Mainly due to the fact that they would have had a lot of experience , they would have been confident , theor cricketing skills would have improved etc.

You see the WICB aka the Masters of Disasters I think had a plan , of selecting young players , but about a year after implementing this plan they abandoned the plan .

In essence , they did not allow the plan sufficient time to work . So here we are now once more chopping and changing players .

I would venture to suggest that in my opinion , the WICB and the Selectors currently have absolutely no vision , neither for the build up to the World Cup 2007 nor for the improvement of Cricket in the Region .

Hence my call for a completely new entity to govern Cricket in the Region .

Now regarding your query about old , the fact remains that if the youngsters were persisted with in 2003 , 3 years later they would have garnered , knowledge , experience , cohesiveness , comraderie etc. THEY WOULD ALSO BE ABLE TO PLAY LONGER THAN SOME OF THE OLDER PLAYERS THAT WERE BROUGHT INTO THE TEAM .

The fact remains that they would have been able to be a unit for 7 to 10 years . But as currently
selected , there are players who are going to quit in 2to 4 years . Naturally this means that new players have to be brought into the team , when that happens players again will have to bond with each other , get the chemistry right etc . That takes time .

I noticed that you did not address the fact that inspite of the changes made we still are losing more matches than winning matches .

Regards .... . POINT .

In reply to POINT
Ok-while I may not totally agree, the reasoning seems strong. I think we should hold our hands though and not make age a driteria.

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

daniel whatever singh you name is an idiot.

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com
west indies can not win the world cup :roll:

The bookmakers fancy the Windies chances.

13/2 joint 2nd favourites.