“Madness!” That was the reaction of a seasoned former Caribbean Cricket Commentator following his personal review of the West Indies Selectors’ announced squads for the forthcoming ODI and T20 Series tours to South Africa. “It’s going from bad to worse,” the Commentator lamented further.
Based on the wholesale adverse reactionary comments made by a greater majority of Caribbean cricket fans on Facebook, following the announcement of the respective squads, it would now be safe to say that the former Good Commentator is far from being alone in his highly unfavourable reaction. To put it mildly, some of the choices made by the West Indies Selectors are bewildering at least, borderline nonsensical at worst.
Even more so when such choices are considered against the backdrop of the West Indies team’s likely participation in the next scheduled ICC marquee tournaments for either of those formats. The West Indies will now most likely be one of the ten teams competing in Zimbabwe this August for the final remaining spots at the 2023 World Cup in India during October. In terms of international T20s, the next major ICC event won’t be until the 2024 joint Caribbean-USA-hosted World Cup.
The announced West Indies ODI Squad for the South Africa tour, consisting as it will be of three matches to be played on March 16, 18 and 21, is as follows: Shai Hope (Captain), Rovman Powell (Vice Captain), Shamarh Brooks, Yannic Cariah, Keacy Carty, Roston Chase, Shannon Gabriel, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Alzarri Joseph, Brandon King, Kyle Mayers, Nicholas Pooran, Romario Shepherd and Odean Smith.
The squad’s makeup includes just two genuine batsmen in Shamarh Brooks and Brandon King, with skipper Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran as more of batting wicket-keepers than the reverse. As batting all-rounders, Keacy Carty, Roston Chase and Kyle Mayers will, however, add further strength to that department. So too will the bowling all-rounders Yannic Cariah, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Romario Shepherd and Odean Smith, all of whom are capable enough of contributing valuable runs with the bat. As out-and-out pacers Shannon Gabriel and Alzarri Joseph complete the squad.
From the perspective of the team’s overall balance, the Selectors appear to have done a half-decent job. Regardless of which combination of batsmen, all-rounders and bowlers is chosen for the final XI, the batting will at least have on paper depth, if not actual strength, while the bowling will offer some degree of variety.
It is, however, in terms of the Selectors’ actual choices for some key roles that have left most fans and followers shaking their heads in utter bewilderment. Especially when those choices are evaluated in comparison to the top performances in Cricket West Indies’ (CWI) most recent domestic Super50 ODI tournament. Which incidentally, Selections Chair the Rt, Honourable Desmond Haynes had publicly stated would have a major bearing on subsequent team selection.
At the conclusion of the 2022 Regional Super50 Tournament, which was held during October and November last, the top twelve run scorers, innings batted, aggregates and averages in brackets, were Rovman Powell (8/346/69.20), Nicholas Pooran (8/337/114.00), Brandon King (8/337/42.12), Shai Hope (6/311/51.83), Kjorn Ottley (8/297/49.50), Alick Athanaze (6/292/48.66), Tevin Imlach 7/268/44.66), Kavem Hodge (6/261/52,20) Darren Bravo (7/240/48.00), Sunil Ambris (6/236/59.00), Keacy Carty (6/234/46.80) and Jahmar Hamilton (6/214/42.80).
Noticeably, nowhere on that list does Shamarh Brooks’ name appear. Nor for that matter do those of either Roston Chase or Kyle Mayers. What is even more perplexing is the non-inclusion of Alick Athanaze, the twenty-four-year-old former U19 player who was the only batsman to score two centuries in the entire tournament.
Athanaze followed up on his 2022 Super50 heroics by also scoring a century followed by a half-century in the first two rounds of this year’s Cricket West Indies Regional 4Day tournament. This feat earned him a call-up to the West Indies Test squad for the preceding two-match tour to South Africa.
Good enough for the Test squad, but not so for the lesser ODI format is the Selectors’ apparent most bewildering message in terms of Athanaze’s exclusion. As to their reasons for choosing Brooks over the youngster, that certainly is not in any way supported by the statistics. Brooks’ 21 ODIs played to date for the West Indies have produced a paltry 694 runs at an average of 34. His runs have also included just a single century.
Brook’s last ten innings in West Indies colours have produced scores of 2,0,79, 0, 35, 46, 4, 5, 33 and 18. Hardly the stuff that would merit inclusion in a West Indies squad for as testing an ODI tour as South Africa. By comparison to Athanaze, Brooks is now 34 years old and will be over 35 by the time the World Cup gets underway this coming October.
The respective ODI stats for both 30-year-olds Roston Chase and Kyle Mayers do not provide flattering reading either. Chase’s 33 ODIs played to date have only produced 553 runs at a paltry 24.04 average. He is yet to score an ODI century.
Even more alarming are the returns from his last ten ODI innings: 19, 13, 1, 0, 20, 41, 2*, 19, 38 and 4. Lest it be argued that his bowling should be considered as a mitigating factor, 19 wickets captured at an average of 42.73 in those 33 matches played would categorically undermine the merits of any such argument.
Kyle Mayers is in many ways no different from Chase as an underachiever who for some inconceivable reasons keeps on receiving the Selectors’ repeated favours, by way of multiple opportunities to demonstrate his inadequacies. Mayers’ unflattering ODI returns to date are 486 runs from 17 matches played for a 30.37 average. Two centuries scored to date, one of which was against lowly Holland. His last ten innings: 105, 0, 6, 0, 39, 75, 17, 10, 5 and 33. Mayers’ ODI bowling:6 wickets taken at an average of 56.50.
One almost thirty-five-year-old and two others well into their thirties, all having been tried, tested and found seriously wanting. Yet all three have been chosen ahead of much younger, more promising players such as the aforementioned Alick Athanaze, but also the likes of Guyana’s Tevlin Imlach and Barbados’ Zachary McCaskie.
In terms of the ODI squad’s bowling, the biggest eyebrows-raising question mark was over the exclusion of Gudakesh Motie. With 14 2022 Super50 wickets captured at an average of 19.21, the tournament’s second-highest behind Shannon Gabriel’s 15, Motie was far more productive than either of the other two chosen spinners. Yanick Cariah who took 12 wickets at a 27.00 average, or Akheal Hosein whose 10 scalps were captured at a 34.60 average.
Hosein’s handiness with the willow as a hard-hitting lower-order batsman, and Cariah’s provided variety as a right-arm leg spinner may have, however, worked in favour of their respective inclusions and against Motie’s. The counterargument could, however, also be made that the squad’s balance would have been better served by Motie’s inclusion as a third front-line spinner than by having as many of the aforementioned three batting all-rounders in Keacy Carty, Roston Chase and Kyle Mayers.
Regarding the announced T20 Squad, and again against the backdrop that the format’s next marquee ICC tournament won’t be until the next year’s World Cup, some of the Selectors’ choices are even more bewildering, if not downright bizarre. Rovman Powell (Captain), Kyle Mayers (Vice Captain), Shamarh Brooks, Yannic Cariah, Johnson Charles, Sheldon Cottrell, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Alzarri Joseph, Brandon King, Obed McCoy, Nicholas Pooran, Raymon Reifer, Romario Shepherd and Odean Smith were the Selectors’ announced choices.
Of these Shamarh Brooks, Johnson Charles, Sheldon Cottrell and Raymon Reifer are highly questionable. All four are well into their thirties and should by now be making way for much younger, far fitter players. Sherfayne Rutherford, Kemo Paul, Dominic Drakes, and Fabian Allen are among those who readily come to mind as far more suitable choices. Especially for a squad which in the exact words of Selection Chair Haynes is comprised of “the players who we believe can form the nucleus as we build towards doing very well and challenging when we host the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in June 2024.”
What is even more alarming is that except for the excluded Evan Lewis, the fifteen-member squad the Selectors have in their infinite wisdom, or apparent lack thereof, chosen is exactly the same that performed so disastrously at last year’s T20 World Cup. Being embarrassingly booted out at the qualification stage and failing to progress to the Super12 Round.
“Madness” indeed!