By Tony (McWatt) and Reds (Perreira)
The recent disastrous tour of Sri Lanka having now been relegated to that part of the brain which stores the most unpleasant memories, supporters of West Indies cricket, ourselves included, will now turn their attention to the team’s forthcoming white-ball tour of Pakistan with high hopes for far more pleasant and positive outcomes. The West Indies will engage Pakistan in three T20Is, and an equal number of ODIs at the Karachi National Stadium from tomorrow until 22.
The forthcoming Pakistan series should provide ample opportunities for the emergence of some new potential stars, as well as a consolidation of the reputations of a few of the more experienced players. Foremost among the latter will be those who were not on the list of the West Indies Roger Harper led Selection Panel’s final choices for the 2021 World Cup, although they rightfully should have been.
Kieron Pollard’s withdrawal from the entire tour, due to a reported injury, has resulted in the West Indies selectors having to appoint Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran as his captaincy replacement for the respective ODI and T20 squads. They both can and should, use the provided opportunity to cement their hold on the respective positions through individual and team leadership performances that would be sufficient to merit their future appointments as more permanent replacements for Pollard as captain. The latter’s contributions, both as a player and leader, having been unsatisfactory at best.
The three T20 matches to be held tomorrow, Tuesday and Thursday will, again, provide Pooran with meaningful opportunities to transform his captaincy tenure to a far more permanent status. In doing so he must step out of the shadow of having been overly influenced by Pollard and Dwayne Bravo, by establishing his own identity and leadership style as captain.
The Pakistan T20 series will also offer opportunities for several players to identify themselves as early candidates for secured spots on the West Indies final squad to next year’s Australia-hosted 2022 ICC T20 World Cup. Darren Bravo and Brandon King will be among the batsmen who will be seeking to stake such early claims. So too will the seamers Dominic Drakes, Odean Smith and Oshane Thomas. As all-rounders, Kyle Mayers, Romario Shepherd and Rovman Powell, the injured Pollard’s squad replacement, will all likewise be wanting to attract the selectors’ 2022 World Cup consideration by means of outstanding performances during the series.
Barring injury or a precipitous loss of form Akeal Hosein, by virtue of his outstanding 2021 T20 World Cup performances as one of the West Indies’ best bowlers, should now be regarded as a shoo-in to be retained as one of the spinners for the 2022 tournament squad. With Australia as the host country, the pitches on which the 2022 World Cup’ matches will be played will, however, be far more seamer-friendly than the spin havens that were the norm at this year’s tournament. With Fabian Allen hopefully destined to eventually recover sufficiently from his injury as to secure his spot, competition for the remaining spinner spots, in whatever number the selectors deem them necessary to be, will therefore be intense.
As such, Pooran’s use of Haydn Walsh Jr., during the three matches, and the latter’s actual performances, should make for interesting watching. So too will the performances of Gudakesh Motie, now finally being allowed to perform at the international level, having repeatedly knocked on the selectors’ door for so very long with his outstanding regional competition achievements.
In a similar, albeit far less urgent manner, the three December 18, 20, and 22 ODI’s will also provide opportunities for future West Indies ODI squad inclusion cementation. In addition to Hope’s more permanent captaincy aspirations, the series will also provide every selected player with an opportunity to stake their early claims for inclusion in West Indies’ ODI teams in the months ahead, as it builds towards its participation in the 2023 ICC World Cup.
If each and every one of those chosen performs to the very best of their God-given abilities, the outcomes of both the T20 and ODI series should provide a much-welcome fillip to West Indies’ cricket fortunes, as well as to the associated morale of their fans. So low have those been of late that no less an established and renowned fan as St Vincent’s longstanding Prime Minister, the Honorable Dr Ralph Gonsalves has found it necessary to describe West Indies cricket as now being in “a state of crisis.”
“On the basis of the recent performances in the T20 World Cup, the abysmally poor outcome we have had in Sri Lanka, and the very mediocre performance here in the Caribbean in recent times, I think it would be fair to say that the cricket is now in a state of crisis,” said Gonsalves. “What we are having here is a full-blown crisis, not a crisis of governance so much, but a crisis in the performance which is connected to governance. I see a crisis as a condition in which the principals are innocent of the extent of the condition and have no credible bundle of ideas as to the way forward,” he said.
In expressing our wholehearted and unreserved agreement with everything that Prime Minister Dr. Gonsalves has said, we would also add that Cricket West Indies’ (CWI) most recent indication of its intention to stage next year’s scheduled January 16 T20 against Ireland as a circus-type grand farewell for Chris Gayle is further evidence of its lack of proper governance of our cricket. In its haste to appease the self-appointed Universe Boss, by granting him his wish for a final T20 International sendoff in his hometown Jamaica, the “player-oriented” President Ricky Skerritt CWI administration has seemingly not given sufficient consideration to the very dangerous precedent it would be setting by doing so.
To the best of our knowledge, such a demand has never ever been made before by any West Indian player, many of whose accomplishments have far exceeded those of Chris Gayle’s, as great as they have indisputably been. Acquiescing to such a demand for personal glorification will, therefore, blast open the door to similar requests being made in the future by any player who deems themselves worthy of such an acknowledgment.
CWI’s controversial announcement of its plans to utilize the January 16 Ireland T20 as a Grand Circus style farewell for Chris Gayle, is for us just its most recent farcical act during 2021, a year which can only now be best described as a continuing comedy of errors! So much so as to now remind us of some of the lyrics from Frank Sinatra’s epic song, Send In The Clowns!
“Don’t you love the farce, my fault I fear
I thought that you’d want what I want, sorry my dear!
Where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns
Don’t worry they’re here!”
About The Writers:
Guyana-born, Toronto-based, Tony McWatt is the Publisher of both the WI Wickets and Wickets monthly online cricket magazines that are respectively targeted towards Caribbean and Canadian readers. He is also the only son of the former Guyana and West Indies wicket-keeper batsman the late Clifford “Baby Boy” McWatt.
Guyana-born Reds (Perreira) has served as a world-recognized West Indies Cricket Commentator for well over fifty years. Reds made his broadcasting debut during the 1971 West Indies-India Test Series, and has commentated on hundreds of matches since then!
