The dreams of Lionel Baker and Brendan Nash to play test cricket for the West Indies were fulfilled yesterday after they were named in the final XI for the first test against New Zealand
By Tony Cozier in Dunedin
The dreams of Lionel Baker and Brendan Nash, two cricketers from vastly different backgrounds, were finally fulfilled at the University Oval here today.
Baker, from one of the smallest places on the planet, the 32 square-miles, volcano-ravaged island of Montserrat, and Nash, born and raised in Australia, an island so large it is a continent, became the West Indies’ latest Test players when chosen for their debuts in the first Test of the series against New Zealand.
While both had already gained selection in recent one-day internationals in Toronto and Abu Dhabi, and regardless of the sudden allure of the 20/20 format, Test cricket remained the ultimate goal for every player.
For fast bowler Baker, it represents the achievement of his long stated ambition of becoming the first from his tiny homeland to represent the West Indies at the highest level.
For Nash, the diminutive left-handed batsman and medium-pacer, it is a fairy tale ending to an ambitious mission that brought him back to the birthplace of his passionately Jamaican parents 18 months ago.
The event is all the more special for him as he marks his 31st birthday on the fourth day of the match on Sunday.
His father, Paul, a Jamaican water-polo player and Olympic swimmer of the 1960s, mother, Andrea, sister, Candy, an uncle and aunt were all present for the occasion after flying in from their adopted home in Brisbane.
“They still love to watch the West Indies,” says Nash who was born soon after his parents arrived in Australia in 1977.
“They always have. My parents are very strong with their Jamaican culture and I wanted to experience that (by returning).”
It was a journey too far for Baker’s family but his carpenter father Thomas, mother, Anita (not the singer) and siblings, would no doubt have been among Montserrat’s 5,000 inhabitants watching intently on their television sets.
Jim Allen, an aggressive batsman once rated alongside a young Viv Richards in the Combined Islands team, was in the West Indies team for Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket 30 years ago but never gained official Test selection.
Growing up, young Nash has memories of every West Indies team to tour Australia in the late 1980s and 1990s being entertained to typical Jamaican fare at his parents’ homes, first in Perth, where he was born, and Cairns before they moved to Brisbane for the sake of his cricket.
He always had a vision, far-fetched as it seemed, of one day playing for Jamaica and the West Indies. It had only begun to materialise two years back when he lost his place with Queensland, for whom he had 29 matches over six years in tough Australian state cricket.
With the diligence and determination that are the features of his game, he soon earned his place in the Jamaica team for the 2007 one-day tournament, the KFC Cup, and last season’s first-class Carib Beer Cup.
Selectors frustrated by batsmen who repeatedly failed to produce at international level turned to him after his Carib returns of 422 runs at an average 46.88 that included two hundreds against Trinidad and Tobago, the second in Jamaica’s victory in the Challenge final.
His batting method, careful rather than carefree, seemed unsuited to the shorter format for which he was first chosen. His inoffensive slow-medium bowling was used more than usual in his five ODIs but runs at No.6 will be more in demand in the Tests.
A lot was initially made of Nash’s colour – he is regarded as the first white West Indies player since reserve wicket-keeper Randall Lyon went to India in 1978-79 – and his Australian birth.
That has diminished through the respect earned by his performances. But he admits he still gets teased by teammates for his Aussie accent and phrases and for his lack of rhythm on the dance floor, surprising since his mother was a star performer in the Jamaica national dance company.
“They get into me about it so I’ve worked on a routine called the one-legged jive which I do every now and then,” he told the Brisbane Courier-Mail. “It keeps them happy.”
There has never been any doubt about Baker’s forte. He is an energetic bowler of lively pace who has come through the system.
After spending a few years in England in his early teens after most of his family left home following the disruption caused by the Soufriere volcano, he returned to Montserrat and progressed through the system – Leeward Islands youth and first-class teams, West Indies under-15s and under-19s (to the World Cup in Bangladesh in 2005 where he took 6-34 against Sri Lanka), West Indies ‘B’ team.
Last season, his bouncer fractured the great Brian Lara’s forearm in a Carib Beer Cup match but he managed only seven expensive wickets in the tournament.
His big break came when, on the evidence of his performance for Montserrat in the annual Stanford 20/20 tournament, Sir Viv and his panel chose him for the Super Stars squad for the 20/20 for $20 million against England.
He didn’t get a game but Clyde Butts and the new West Indies selectors saw the same potential as their Stanford counterparts, including him in the squad for the current twin-tour of Abu Dhabi and New Zealand.
It is a selection that cost him a contract that had been lined up with English county, Leicestershire, next season. It means he now counts as an overseas player rather than qualified through his British passport.
Nash’s opportunity has come well into his career, although at the same age as other Australian late starters Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin.
Baker is 24 with a prospect of another decade taking wickets for the West Indies.
Their international futures start here.
