Browne: Ramdin still within our thoughts

CHAIRMAN of the West Indies selectors Courtney Browne said wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin is in the selectors’ thoughts, but they are trying to give players a chance to prove themselves by keeping the core of the team together.

Barbadian Shane Dowrich was selected ahead of Ramdin on the 13-man West Indies squad for the three-match Test series against Sri Lanka, which bowls off on June 6 at the Queen’s Park Oval in St Clair.

Ramdin had a brilliant regional four-day 2017/2018 season, finishing second behind Devon Smith on the scoring charts. He made 799 runs in 10 matches for the TT Red Force at an average of 61.46, including three centuries and four 50s.

Browne said Ramdin, who played in a T20 series for West Indies against Pakistan earlier this year, is still in the plans going forward for West Indies cricket.

“If you can remember, Denesh Ramdin went up to Pakistan with our T20 team, so he is definitely within our thoughts, but at this time the incumbent Dowrich (will maintain his place) for the first Test in the Sri Lanka series.”

Browne said Ramdin is not being blacklisted, as his recent appearance in Pakistan proves. “Ramdin just played T20 cricket for us, and he is also heading to the UK to play T20 cricket for us, so I don’t think anybody could use the word blacklisted.”

But Browne said Dowrich has achieved enough recently to maintain his place in the team. He explained, “Shane Dowrich would have scored a century against Zimbabwe (last October). He did not have the best series in New Zealand (in December and January), but then again, nobody had a good series in New Zealand, besides maybe Kraigg Brathwaite.

“He would have played in A team cricket against England (in February and March), who we would have thrashed, and he was the best batsman on both sides, so that would have helped him retain his position.”

Browne said the selectors are trying to keep a core group of players together, in the hope that they would develop into top international players.

“We are trying to build a team that could be competitive at the international level, but to do that you need to give players opportunities and give the coaches an opportunity to actually grow those players, so it is important that we don’t do a lot of chopping and changing.”

The West Indies squad will also include 36-year-old Devon Smith and uncapped Jahmar Hamilton.

Browne said they had no choice but to select Smith after a brilliant Regional Four-Day season last year. Smith amassed a record breaking 1,095 runs at an average of 84, with six hundreds, for the Windward Islands Volcanoes.

Hamilton struggled to compile 237 runs at an average of 16 for the Leeward Islands Hurricanes in the four-day season last year. But Browne said Hamilton has been performing over the last few years for the West Indies A team and in regional four-day cricket, and as a result, the selectors felt he deserved a spot on the West Indies Test squad, despite a dismal showing in the four-day tournament last season. Hamilton averages just 27.17 in first-class cricket and 23.64 in one-day matches.