The confusion and controversy that has been affecting West Indies cricket for ever so long can now officially be regarded as plague worthy. Obviously confused, clueless, Selectors sending an opening batsman to replace an injured spinner for a World Cup qualification tournament, as well as highly controversial choices of several general practitioners for highly specialized Assistant Coaching roles. All this and more having occurred most recently to suggest that West Indies cricket has indeed now become severely plagued by reigning confusion and controversy, if not also “comess” as the Trinis would say!
Topping the list of the confusion litany was the West Indies Selectors’ recent announcement of the St Lucian, now thirty-four-year-old, Johnson Charles as the injured Guyanese left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie’s replacement in the fifteen-member West Indies squad for the Zimbabwe-hosted final 2023 ODI World Cup Qualifier. The two-time former World Cup champions West Indies have been forced to endure the ignominy of participating in the Zimbabwe-hosted Qualifier, as one of the ten lower-than-eight ranked ICC teams vying for the final two remaining spots of the ODI Title championship to be held in India this coming October-November.
Put aside the immediate eye-brow-raising inferred nepotism of Charles being a fellow St Lucian countryman of the West Indies recently appointed white-ball Head Coach Darren Sammy, and there still is left the utter confusion of a left-arm spinner being replaced by an opening batsman/backup wicket-keeper. To further add to the confusion, is the reality that before Charles’ surprising, required replacement inclusion was announced, the fifteen-member squad was already inclusive of at least three fully capable openers, as well as the standard quota of two-wicketkeeper/batsmen.
With Shai Hope, Brandon King and Kyle Mayers all already in the squad, and fully capable of opening the batting, what more could Charles possibly add to the squad’s adequately covered opening slot? As a wicketkeeper/batsman, Charles is also a fair distance behind both captain Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran in either department! Nor is Charles’ inclusion supported to any degree whatsoever by his overall ODI record!
In the 51 ODI matches he’s played to date for the West Indies, since his March 2012 debut, now more than eleven very long years ago, Johnson Charles has only scored 1373 runs at a sub-par, wholly unsatisfactory, average of 26.92! His
51 completed innings have yielded just 2 centuries and 5 half-centuries. That’s equivalent to a century every 25 matches and a half-century every 10!
Charles’ World Cup squad inclusion is, therefore, not in any way at all justified by his rather unflattering overall statistics! Furthermore, his inclusion as a replacement for a left-arm spinner again indicates with crystal clarity that the selection of the initial squad was not at all efficiently constructed.
In Charles’ defense, and as a possible explanation for the West Indies Selectors’ clearly muddled thinking, he did score a very impressive and aggressive half-century (63) in the second of the West Indies three pre-Qualifier Warm-Up matches against the sub-ten ICC ranked UAE. That half-century was, however, bookended by Charles’ scores of 24 and 3 in the first and third ODI’s of the same series. Back to type and business as usual.
Adding further insult and injury to the Selectors’ simultaneously confusing and controversial choice of Charles as the injured Motie’s replacement, was the reality of two much younger brighter-future prospects both also having outstanding UAE Series outings. Albeit only in the final encounter of the three-match series.
Kevin Sinclair, the right-arm off-spinning bona fide all-rounder and a potential almost like-for-like Motie replacement, captured 4/24 to help the West Indies secure a 3-0 victory in the series. After Sinclair had weaved his magic web to help restrict the UAE to just 184, Alick Athanaze the 25-year-old batting prodigy stroked a world-record equalling fastest debut ODI forty-five ball half-century to make mincemeat of the UAE’s total. This while the World Cup Qualifier chosen Charles had already fallen for just 3 after facing only 10 balls.
The Selectors were extremely hasty in adding Charles to the Qualifier squad, based largely on his second-match half-century, if not his shared St Lucian nationality with Head Coach Sammy. Had they not chosen so hastily, either Sinclair or Athanaze would have presented a much more logical and acceptable alternative.
The confusion surrounding Charles’ World Cup Qualifier inclusion was preceded by the similarly controversial announcement of the Assistant Coaches to complete West Indies white-ball Head Coach Darren Sammy’s coaching cadre. Typically, Assistant Coaches are of two standard varieties of Batting and Bowling Specialists. Occasionally a Specialist Fielding Coach or even a Spin Bowling Assistant might also be included to complete a cadre, dependent on the needs at the time.
Not so, however, for current-day West Indies cricket. No Sir, not by a long shot. In an announcement that left most fans and followers shaking their heads in utter disbelief, Cricket West Indies (CWI) indicated that former captains Carl Hooper and Floyd Reifer would be Sammy’s Assistants. New Zealand’s all-rounder James Franklin was also named as a third Assistant Coach.
The first question that would have come to the minds of everyone, except the CWI Non-Cricketing Directors-dominated Committee that made the choices, was as to who would be doing what among those three. Neither Hooper nor Reifer is either a Specialist Batting or Bowling Coach. Hooper would be far more suited as a Batting Coach, but again neither could justifiably be regarded as a Specialist Bowling Coach.
What would Reifer bring to the table that is any different from that which Hooper would provide was the second very legitimate question being asked by many West Indies cricket fans and followers following the announcements. Even more so against the backdrop of Reifer’s abject failure as the West Indies Head Coach during the last ICC ODI World Cup.
With regards to the largely unknown James Franklin, there was absolutely no explanation provided for his appointment in CWI’s official Media Release which immediately followed the announcements! Why are we not in any way surprised by this?
Former West Indies players Kenny Benjamin and Stuart Williams, as well as Rayon Griffith, were also announced as Assistants to West Indies red-ball Test team Head Coach Andre Coley. Although the choice of Stuart Williams has been viewed by most as a similarly unnecessary and unwelcome recycling of as big a proven failure as Floyd Reifer, at least there was in terms of those chosen a much clearer delineation of the batting and bowling Assistant Coaching roles. Griffith’s appointment has been viewed merely as a reward for his years of service within regional cricket.
Roston Chase’s elevation to the West Indies captaincy for the third and final ODI against the UAE. And the lack of any official CWI response to the widely circulating social media rumor of next year’s Caribbean-USA joint hosting of the ICC T20 World Cup being shifted to England, were additional sources of confusion during the past week.
Cricket captaincy at any level is normally reserved for individuals whose place on the team is merited beyond reproach. That certainly cannot be said of Chase, who as far as everyone except his fellow Barbadians, Selection Chair Desmond Haynes, and Co-Selector Roland Butcher, is concerned should now not be anywhere near a West Indies team in any of the game’s three formats Tests, ODI or T2oI.
To cap all the confusion off and add a bit of comess as the Trinis would say, there was a widely circulated rumor on social media of next year’s ICC T20 World Cup no longer being held in the Caribbean and the USA as scheduled. Reportedly, as a direct result of the USA’s widely known administrative issues as well as the unreadiness of their targeted World Cup match hosting venues.
Instead of publicly denouncing the rumor, which had been brought to its attention at the highest possible levels, as unfounded gossip, CWI opted to instead remain completely silent. The rumor was, however, thankfully eventually dispelled by a belated official ICC statement.
Confusion, controversy and comess, the three now all too common characteristics of West Indies cricket. Nothing less than to be expected from all those who are now making some of West Indies cricket’s most important decisions!