The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has a habit of baffling almost all and sundry and with a new year has remained consistent.
Can anyone understand the thinking of the WICB? I mean why give Dwayne Bravo a contract but leave him out of the World Cup squad? Clearly his omission is not for cricketing reasons so it must be some sort of disciplinary action.
If you’re taking disciplinary action would it be not be more effective to not contract him?.
The latest twist in regional cricket is that the 31-year-old Bravo, who along with Kieron Pollard have been left out of West Indies’ squad for next month’s 2015 World Cup, is among 12 players contracted by the WICB. The contracts were approved at a WICB board meeting in Antigua over the weekend.
Bravo is not nearly the same potent force he was at the start of his international career, which stretches back to 2004, but he is good enough to make any West Indies One-Day side.
He was just selected for the ICC ODI Team Of The Year For 2014; that is the team selected from among all the One-Day cricketers in the world. Bravo can make that team, but is not good enough to make the West Indies side? That’s strange, to say the least.
The contracts are for the period between October 1, 2014, and September 30, 2015.
In 2010, Christoper Gayle, Bravo and Kieron Pollard had refused retainer contracts. It is ironic that Gayle who has been named in the World Cup, is now refusing a retainer contract while Bravo has been contracted.
Sunil Narine, the number one ranked One-Day bowler and number two ranked in the T20 format in the world, has also refused a retainer contract.
So what does this mean for the future of both men? If they are not obligated to West Indies’ cricket, West Indies’ cricket owes them nothing and may not be considered for the tours by England and Australia in the coming months.
Gayle has always been his own man and has all rights to chart his way forward, and so does Narine.
However, there can be no better time than to make a final decision on both men and decide what is best for West Indies’ cricket.
Neither man has much of a future, anyhow.
There are more questions than answers surrounding the legality of Narine’s bowling action and at 26 has to be a bit worried about what the future holds.
Inconsistency and injury at 35, make Gayle more of a liability than an asset in the five-day game and it is in this format that the West Indies clearly have to invest in someone for the long-term to partner the unruffled Kraigg Brathwaite at the top of the order.
Gayle should play his last Test in May against England at Kensington Oval where he averages a disappointing 26.57 and has never scored a hundred in 12 matches.
Only time will tell if he will get the chance to end that drought.
The other debatable issue surrounds the decision to elevate Marlon Samuels to the vice-captaincy of the West Indies side for the World Cup. Samuels’ demeanour and attitude at times while playing for Jamaica and the West Indies or captaining the Antigua Hawksbill in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) has not marked him as a team man.
In the Test series in South Africa, Samuels topped the team’s aggregate, (268 runs at 53.60, 1 hundred, 1 fifty), but the manner of two of his dismissals reflected recklessness, to say the least. Both came in the Newlands Test, when he reached to drive a wide delivery from part-timer Stiaan van Zyl and provided a catch to cover and then in the second innings, having helped West Indies into a promising lead, lofted Simon Harmer to long-on.
Jason Holder is being thrown in at the deep end and as a new captain will need all the help he can get, but it is strange to have a skipper at 23 with his deputy, turning 34 next month.
It says little about succession planning but why should anyone be surprised? It is the WICB we are talking about.
