Poor squad selection choices have been, post-mortem, universally identified as one of the fundamental causes of the West Indies’ embarrassing failure to qualify for this year’s ICC 2023 ODI World Cup. For the very first time in the tournament’s now forty-eight-year history. The announced West Indies thirteen-member squad for the first of the two home Tests against India, to be played in Dominica from July 12-16 has also raised more than a few eyebrows within the region. As such the combination of those two most recent events, bookended as they are by highly controversial previous selections at one end and beckoning required ODI and T20I squads rebuilding in the weeks ahead, have now placed West Indies Selection Chairman, the Rt, Honourable Desmond Haynes under public scrutiny of the highest intensity.
As talented as they may be, the current generation of West Indies players, are a few ladder rungs below the standards required for consistent success at international cricket’s highest levels. A sadly, palpably obvious reality that only the blind would now choose to ignore. As such the quite simple, primary responsibility of West Indies Selection Panels should be to mitigate the standards gap as much as humanly possible by always ensuring that the very best squads are selected from the pool of available players. Sadly, within the past five years, arguably even longer, West Indies Selection Panels have utterly failed to do so.
Dubious choices of the previous Roger Harper-led West Indies Selection Panel led to Desmond Haynes January 2022 appointment as the new Chairman. Since then, however, rather than provide the desired sense of reassuring stability that would have come from solid, universally acceptable chosen squads, Haynes’ choices have been increasingly controversial. His Panel’s squad composition for the Zimbabwe Qualifier to determine the final two participants for the 2o23 ODI World Cup to be held in India, this coming October-November was nothing short of a diabolical disaster!
For starters, Haynes and his fellow Barbadian-born Selector, Roland Butcher made the very controversial decision to not include the twenty-six-year-old Shimron Hetmeyer, undeniably one of the West Indies’ very few world-class talented level batsmen. Haynes stated explanation for Hetmeyer’s exclusion was that his Panel was preferring to stick with the players who had made themselves available for preceding tours. It escaped no one that one of those preferred players was the 34-year-old Barbadian Shamarh Brooks.
Before the Zimbabwe Qualifier, Brooks’ ODI scores in the five ODI matches he played, 0, 18, 44, 20 and 39. Hardly anything to write home about!
Furthermore, 842 runs scored at an average of 30.07 from 29 innings batted with just one century and four fifties are Brooks’ overall ODI statistics. Compared to those of the five years younger Hetmeyer, whose 44 ODI innings batted have so far produced 1447 runs at a much superior average of 35.29, but far more importantly with five centuries and four fifties included.
Predictably Brooks flattered to deceive yet again. After missing the first three matches of the Zimbabwe Qualifier campaign through injury, his scores in the remaining fixtures were 25, 0 and 2!
The bewildering choice of Brooks over Hetmeyer was only the first of many subsequently proven erroneous choices made by Haynes and his Panel. Even before the squad got to Zimbabwe, the West Indies’ brain trust had decided that the team’s preparation tour for the all-important Qualifier would consist of three ODI matches in the UAE. Conditions for that were vastly different from those that would be encountered in Zimbabwe, and against decidedly inferior opponents.
The decision was also made to allow the IPL members of the chosen Zimbabwe Qualifier squad to opt out of the UAE preparation tour. That meant that unlike most of the other teams which had been playing together for at least a month prior, getting their combinations spot on and gelling as a cohesive unit, the West Indies arrived in Zimbabwe as a disjointed group. With all the IPL players being exposed to recently appointed Head Coach Darren Sammy for the very first time in his new role.
Shambolic planning that was made even worse by the selected squad, comprised as it was of four all-rounders Jason Holder, Kyle Mayers, Kemo Paul, and Romario Shepherd essentially of the same identical medium pacer type mold. No second out and out quickie to provide any assistance to Alzarri Joseph as the bowling attack’s spearhead. Not even left-arm seam, such as Dominic Drakes who would have added some variety to the attack. There were also two left-arm spinners in Akeal Hosein and Gudakesh Motie, as well as the leg-spinner Yannic Cariah.
The very poor initial squad selection was then compounded by the incomprehensible choice of Johnson Charles, the 34-year-old St Lucian opening batsman, as the replacement for the injured left-arm spinner Motie. As a fellow St Lucian countryman of Head Coach Darren Sammy, Charles’ last ODI appearance for the West Indies had been as far back as 2016. His scores in the three UAE warm-up matches and seven Zimbabwe Qualifier matches he played were 24, 63, 3, 66, 0, 1, 54, 0, 4 and 39.
The West Indies’ Zimbabwe Qualifier major selection errors were further exaggerated by the delayed choice of Kevin Sinclair as the replacement for the injured Yannic Cariah. The decision concerning Cariah’s inability to participate any further in the campaign was left until the very last minute.
By then it had become obvious to all, except Haynes et al, that what was most needed was an extra out-an-out pacer to provide the attack with the required potency and to give Joseph the assistance he needed. The young Barbadian pacer Jair McAllister would, therefore, have been a much better choice at that stage of the tournament than Sinclair as yet another spinner. Even Dominic Drakes’ left arm seam would again at least have provided some useful variety.
Fresh from the Zimbabwe Qualifier’s poor selection influenced World Cup non-qualification embarrassment, Haynes has announced his Panels thirteen-member squad for the Dominica-hosted July 12-16 West Indies-India first Test. Reassuringly, the squad includes two young, exciting and as yet uncapped players in Alick Athanaze and Kirk McKenzie.
Those two very encouraging future-building choices made by Haynes and his fellow selectors have, however, been undermined to a contentious degree by the inclusions of Raymon Reifer, Rakheem Cornwall, Shannon Gabriel and Jomel Warrican. The inclusion merits of which can be readily debated, as they have been throughout the Caribbean and beyond since the squad was announced.
Haynes and his Panel now seem set to continue with their square-peg-in-round-hole use of Raymon Reifer as the West Indies number three batsman. A choice that can only be described as insulting to any of the previous holders of that coveted role. From George Headley and Everton Weekes, through Rohan Kanhai, Lawrence Rowe, Alvin Kallicharran, Viv Richards, and Brian Lara among others.
Almost four years after he made his West Indies debut, the thirty-year-old Rakheem Cornwall is still as unfit for Test cricket as he ever was. Despite having been a Caribbean regional four-day cricket leading wicket-taker for many years, Cornwall’s Test returns of 34 wickets taken at an average of 37.76 and 236 runs scored at 18.30 are largely unflattering. Furthermore, they do not in any way compensate for the restrictions his lack of mobility places on West Indies Test captain Kraigg Brathwaite’s field placings. Arising from the reality that Cornwall can only really ever be placed at one or two positions in the field throughout an entire innings!
Gabriel’s recall, instead of allowing an opportunity to a much younger pacer such as the very promising Jair McCallister, is another highly debatable choice by Haynes and his Panel. Whatever experience and raw pace Gabriel can provide has of late had to be considered against his repeatedly demonstrated inability to withstand the rigorous demands of five-day Test match cricket.
Haynes’ choice of his fellow Barbadian Jomel Warrican over the Guyanese leading regional four-day tournament wicket-taker Veerasammy Permaul is, however, the choice that has created the most controversy. There’s not much difference between their relative ages and records, Warrican at 31 years of age has captured 41 wickets from 13 matches at a 35.21 average and 3.21 economy rate, compared to the 33-year-old Permaul whose 9 Tests have yielded 31 scalps at 33.87 and 4.91. Based on Permaul having played more matches and with greater success than Warrican in this year’s most recent four-day tournament, however, many feel he should have been preferred over Warrican.
Also looming on the immediate horizon for Haynes and his Panel will be the necessity of naming the respective squads for the West Indies’ three ODIs and five T20Is against the Indians. With the now-required rebuilding towards the next 2027 ODI and even more immediately next year’s Caribbean-hosted T20I Word Cups, Haynes’ choices over the next few weeks will be under a greater degree of public scrutiny than ever before!