Just over a year and five months into his appointment as West Indies Lead Selector, the honeymoon period of favourable fan and followers reactions to teams chosen by West Indies Lead Selector the Rt, Honourable Desmond Haynes and his Panel has ended. On January 6, 2022, Cricket West Indies (CWI) named Haynes to take over the Selection Panel Chairmanship as the replacement for the fallen out of favour Roger Harper, whose contract had not been renewed. Since then, criticisms of Haynes’s announced squads, as muted as they may have been initially, have started to become more strident!
While the initial overall reaction to Haynes’ announced appointment had for the greater part been that of optimism, there were even back then elements of doubt as to his suitability for the job. Those notwithstanding the universal admiration and respect unquestionably held throughout the Caribbean for the legendary Haynes, who having announced his entry into international cricket with a 1978 debut 148 against Australia, scored a further 8500 ODI runs, including 17 centuries, for the West Indies during his six-year career.
Haynes also represented the West Indies in 116 Tests, scoring 7487 runs including 17 centuries. He spent he majority of his Test and ODI career as an opening-batting partner to the equally legendary, Gordon Greenidge, his fellow Barbadian countryman. Together they formed one of the most successful opening-batting partnerships in international cricket history.
Having also captained the West Indies in four Tests and been inducted into the ICC’s Hall Of Fame in June 2021, Haynes’ pedigree as the announced Lead Selector, therefore, seemed to be beyond dispute. There was, however, still some prevailing sentiment at the time that he would have been much better suited as a replacement for the by-then-beleaguered West Indies Head Coach Phil Simmons.
Some knowledgeable individuals within Caribbean cricket circles had even speculated, both privately and publicly, that Haynes’ Selection Chair appointment had been a last-ditch desperation move by then CWI President Ricky Skerritt to preserve Simmons’ Head Coach tenure. Simmons’ appointment had itself been announced, with much public fanfare, as the flagbearer of the Skerrit administration’s much-heralded West Indies First Policy!
Despite the very impressive, indisputable, qualifications of knowledge and experience that he brought into the role, right from the very outset there has nevertheless always been some degree of controversy surrounding teams announced by the Haynes-led West Indies Selection Panel. One of Haynes’ first very controversial decisions was the inclusion of the Test seamer, his fellow Barbadian Kemar Roach, in the West Indies ODI squad to tour India just a month after his Selection Chair appointment had been announced. Deservedly regarded as one of the most successful Test seamers the West Indies has ever produced, Roach’s effectiveness in ODI matches has never been closely similar.
In his 92 ODI matches played for the West Indies before the 2022 India tour; Roach had taken 124 wickets at an average of 31.08 and an economy rate of over 5.00. By the time the tour’s three scheduled ODI matches were completed, he had added only one more victim to his overall tally.
Roach’s solitary wicket in the three-match series was captured at the cost of 122 runs from 20 overs bowled. To add insult to the injury of Haynes’ glaringly obvious selectorial error, Roach even failed to complete his allocated 10 overs in any of the three matches played.
In the now approximately 17 plus months that have passed since that initial faux pas, almost every team selected by Haynes and his fellow selectors has included at least one controversial pick. From Yannic Cariah’s surprise, zero prior experience, inclusion in the West Indies 2022 T20 World Cup squad, through to the equally controversial selection of Roston Chase as the West Indies’ supposed front-line off-spinner for the Test tour to Australia which followed immediately after, teams selected by Haynes’ et al have become invariably and alarmingly questionable.
Further, now unmistakable, evidence of the ever-growing void between Haynes’ Panel’s choices and the opinions of most Caribbean cricket fans and followers has been provided by recently announced squads. First, there were the fifteen chosen for the West Indies A tour to Bangladesh. This was followed almost immediately after by the announced West Indies squad to participate in the June Zimbabwe-hosted final Qualifier for the ICC ODI World Cup, to be held in India this coming November.
The announced squad for its developmental A team tour to Bangladesh, one of only two countries listed below the West Indies in the ICC Test rankings, was equally controversial for its both its inclusions and omissions. Yannic Cariah, Keacy Carty, Anderson Phillip and Ramon Reifer were primary among the squad’s inclusions that made extraordinarily little sense to most observers. Even more questionable were the omissions of the very promising, abundantly talented, West Indies Academy batsmen, Kevlon Anderson and Kevin Wickham. Both of whom had demonstrated their immense potential during this year’s four-day cricket First Class season.
Cariah and Carty were “recurring themes” as one very well respected, ageing but still very actively outspoken, former Test Radio Commentator quipped, in the West Indies announced World Cup Qualifier squad. So too was Roston Chase who has apparently long since become a “must pick” for his fellow Barbadian Haynes.
Mediocre would now be a most complimentary description for Chase’s well-documented inferior returns of late with both bat and ball. Yet, despite such paucity, Chase has continued to win the favour of Haynes and company. An occurrence that has left many West Indies fans, followers, and even seasoned commentators raising their eyebrows and shaking their heads in utter disbelief.
The ever-growing disparity between the Haynes and his fellow Selectors’ announced squads and those which now almost everyone else would argue should instead be chosen, has given cause for the structure of the West Indies three-member Panel to also come into question. Suggestions have been made that the Panel’s composition should be increased from three back to five members, as it used to be during the good old halcyon days of West Indies global Test and ODI supremacy.
Eldine Baptiste, Jeffrey Dujon, Tony Gray and Lockhart Sebastian are some of those whose names have been suggested as objective-judgements oriented members of an expanded Selection Panel. Leon Johnson, the recently retired, impressively successful, multi-title winning Guyana First Class captain, has also been suggested as someone who would bring a much-needed more youthful perspective to the recommended expanded Panel’s deliberations.
According to the initial announcement of his appointment, Haynes’ tenure as West Indies Selection Chair is scheduled to last until next June 2024. Between now and then, Haynes and his fellow Selectors, countryman Roland Butcher and either the West Indies red-ball or white-ball Head Coach, respectively Andre Coley or Darren Sammy as recently announced, will have several selectorial assignments.
India’s tour to the Caribbean, potentially the ICC ODI World Cup assuming the West Indies team can advance from the Zimbabwe Qualifier, a tour to Afghanistan, England’s end-of-year white ball visit and a return to Australia next January-February. All these and quite possibly more will be the challenging selection assignments facing Haynes & Co, before his contract’s first term comes to its scheduled end next year June.
By then, if the Haynes Panel’s announced squad choices continue to be similarly controversial, the very same public clamouring criticism knives that were sharpened, drawn and eventually used to the demise of his predecessor Roger Harper will again become present. The now relatively quiet whispers of dissatisfaction over Haynes’ performance as West Indies Selection Chair could very well soon, long before next June, become a public uproar!