BNB St Catherine’s captain Derick Bishop is ready to represent his country but is disappointed that the national selectors are not giving him a chance to fulfil his ambition.
Bishop, 27, was the most successful and economical bowler in this year’s Sagicor General Super Cup Championship as he led the St Philip side to their fourth 50-over one-day cricket title.
But he was not named in the 34-man squad announced last Friday for next month’s regional one-day tournament, scheduled to be played in Guyana.
“Honestly, I am very disappointed. I don’t know what I did that was wrong. No one spoke to me; no one ever told me anything.
“This is two years now that every time there is trials, I am omitted all the time and I don’t know really what is going on,” Bishop said.
“Since I was the best all-rounder in 2009 when I scored 829 runs and took 58 wickets, I was never called to trials since,” added Bishop.
He last represented Barbados in the 2008 Stanford Twenty20 competition in Antigua when he took five wickets in two matches at an average of 9.00 and economy rate of 6.42 runs an over.
In the past, it was touted that getting leave from his employer, the Barbados National Oil Company (BNOC), was a problem but Bishop said that was never an issue, rather the late notification from the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA).
“Work is never a problem. They [my employers] tell me [that] any time I’m selected, just come to them and let them know and that’s it,” Bishop said.
“But I just think it is tardiness on the BCA’s behalf, like the fax is always sent to my workplace late.
It was never really a work issue, it was always on the BCA side,” he said.
Bishop, who came through the junior ranks, representing the country for three years in the Under-15 regional tournament and another three in the Under-19 competition, believes he can still make a contribution to Barbados’ cricket at the national level.
“I’ve been training on mornings and sometimes on evenings as I do believe that the best cricketers who are performing should always be playing for Barbados,” he contended.
“But honestly, that is all left up to the selectors. I’m always ready to represent Barbados, so it is out of my hands now. That’s the truth, but I’m very disappointed,” Bishop said amid celebrations at Kensington Oval on Sunday.
