Mayhem awaits the WI cricket cup bid

THE EDITOR: In a mad rush to ensure automatic qualification by the West Indies for Cricket World Cup 2019, an amnesty is granted to allow anyone to be chosen. This includes cricketers who have not played in that format of the game for years.

Therefore, commentators will now be calling for the selection of any person, especially from their respective territory and the result will be name-calling, such as territorial bias and insularity.

There are presently, questions about the number of Barbadian cricketers on the WI tour of England, chosen by a Barbadian-led selection panel, according to the commentators. But Eldine Baptiste, Travis Dowlin and Lockhart Sebastien (three of four) are not Barbadians. As usual, no one suggests alternatives and, better yet, who should be removed from the team.

Without any criteria, such as the need to participate in the regional tournaments, these competitions will now be neglected and relegated to non-importance.

While two cricketers have jumped to immediately accept the opportunity to return to West Indies colours in the one-day format, others have declined until they have sufficient practice in the one-day game.

As the post-mortem continues following the First Test match loss in England, commentators, both regional and foreign, are quick to put forward names of players without recalling the last time they have played in a four/five-day match — Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Sammy.

Again I ask, which selector, a serious true selector, is willing to select players who have not played in that format of the sport within recent time?

Further, why is the director of cricket, Jimmy Adams, and the lead coach, Stuart Law, and the captain, Jason Holder, not part of the selection panel? In fact, the director of cricket and the lead coach should be leading the selection panel, which should comprise of the sub-coaches, the captain and maybe others, if necessary.

And now that the West Indies has won the Second Test match, jump on the win wagon.

But remember, we still have an issue with the hierarchy of Cricket West Indies starting from Dave Cameron. After the First Test loss, Dr Allen Sammy of the TT Cricket Board stated that Cameron was not on the field of play and should not be blamed for the loss. After the Second Test win, Cameron also was not on the field of play. Following the win, let them accept the kudos for the win but Cameron and others must go and must go now for West Indies cricket to improve.

But as we scramble to try to gain automatic selection for the 2019 World Cup, we will descend into permanent (not temporary) mayhem, forgetting about organised plans, if such exist, for development programmes.

Maybe, just maybe, one step forward, if we can get around the corner, but definitely three steps backwards.

PHILIP AYOUNG-CHEE

via email