Red Force stars and World Cup hopes

COLIN BENJAMIN

ONE of the major factors that has hurt domestic cricket throughout the West Indies compared to the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) is the lack of established players participating.

Therefore, when Cricket West Indies announced in July that it was moving the Super50 from January 2019 to this October and had come to an agreement with the Bravo brothers, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine to play in tournament and push for a World Cup place – strong anticipation grew that the competition could rival CPL for once, with all the best Windies players on show.

For the Red Force, objectively it seemed a forgone conclusion with World Cup incentive on the line that they would win the tournament, especially with the other teams depleted after CWI announced the ongoing India tour would happen alongside Super50 surprisingly.

That change, while it’s no excuse, certainly decreased the excitement for the tournament because the crowds in Trinidad and Barbados – except for Red Force’s defeat to Guyana at Brian Lara Academy, Tarouba – never came out. While for some reason television coverage was only in Barbados.

So, while playing in the World Cup would have obviously motived upcoming domestic players to play hard cricket, the fair question must be asked – how much of a demotivating factor was this for the Red Force star players, who are accustomed to playing in front of massive crowds and audiences worldwide.

As the saying goes, “cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties”. The 24-hour period of events on Friday and Saturday morning where the Red Force got a stunning defeat in the Super50 semi-finals and West Indies winning the third one-day international in India, fully epitomised that sporting idiom.

Now, inevitably the knives are out and if one goes by the basic CWI hard-line selection policy that players must perform in the domestic competition to earn a West Indies call-up, you would think that automatically rules them out.

However, current chairman of selectors Courtney Browne has often shown that’s not the case.

Since he took over from Clive Lloyd in 2016, he has displayed that certain incumbents in the West Indies team (especially from his native Barbados), even if they are struggling, are likely to get an extended run, while the Bravos, Pollard, Narine and Ramdin are held to a different standard and seemingly have to do extraordinary things to get picked for the Windies again.

Plus, on the current tour to India, players such as Fabian Allen, Chandrapual Hemraj, Obed McCoy and Oshane Thomas have essentially been picked – on CPL form – to the one-day team instead of what they did in January’s Super 50 competition.

Therefore, who is to say if West Indies don’t win the ongoing series in India, Bangladesh and England and head into next years World Cup without a one-day series win since August 2014,that these guys cannot still make the World Cup if they perform in other domestic T20 leagues worldwide, despite their Super50 failures?

So, if such an objective viewpoint is used and what happened in Super50 is not seen as the final decision-making point in their World Cup hopes, how does one assess their current standings after the competition?

Nicholas Pooran & Denesh Ramdin:

Shai Hope went into the India series under pressure as the incumbent keeper batsman with strong criticism over his strike rate for modern ODI cricket, which opened a strong oppurtunity for both Pooran and Ramdin to oust him.

However, two brilliant innings in India have all but secured his place ahead of the competition. Pooran with 292 and an average of 48 was Red Force’s best player and displayed a lot of qualities that could still get him into the Windies team in 50 overs, especially if he goes into the T20 leg of the India tour and backs up performance.

Ramdin, too, who recently got a Windies recall to the T20 team during the Pakistan tour in March, will inversely have to use the India T20 to make a case after just scoring one half-century in the Super50.

Lendl Simmons:

Simmons was the next best player for the Red Force, scoring 237 runs at an average 39, showing solid form as an opener. Whether he is still interested in playing for West Indies is an open question, but with fellow countryman Evin Lewis having a difficult last few months with the bat and Chris Gayle telling West Indies he is unavailable to the one-day team for remainder of year – he has certainly reminded selectors of his ability as an opener.

Darren Bravo:

Bravo’s injury he suffered while batting in the CPL final for Trinbago Knight Riders restricted his participation to three innings in the Super50. While Hope and Shimron Hetmyer are batting brilliantly in the middle-order, there is a clear opening for Bravo to slot back into the team with veteran Marlon Samuels struggling for once due to Bravo’s default position as the best batsman in West Indies.

Kieron Pollard:

Pollard’s 69 runs at 9.85 is highly disappointing by his high standards especially considering how excellent he was in the CPL. The position he would likely play in the Windies team is currently occupied by Rovman Powell and he would need to replicate the CPL form in India and the upcoming months, while hoping the incuments struggle to get a recall.

Khary Pierre and Sunil Narine:

Pierre didn’t totally replicate his excellent CPL bowling form for the Red Force and is the final player who has the India tour T20s to look forward to, but neither will Sunil Narine who was strangely not picked, but was his usual self with the ball taking nine wickets at 22 with a miserly economy rate of 3.5.

Earlier this year, Narine was called for a suspect action during the Pakistan Super league for the first time since 2016. He along with his British agents at Insignia Sports international, bowling coach Carl Crowe and CWI CEO Johnny Grave have all stated publicly and privately that Narine has used both Super50 tournaments this year to test his action in that format before potentially playing for Windies in that format again.

It’s therefore inconceivable that Narine could be continuously left out of Windies limited overs teams for upcoming series based on Super50 form.