IT IS DIFFICULT to remember a time during the last 30 years when the West Indies cricket selectors as an establishment were not “building a team for the future” with little or no regard for its foundation.
Coaches and their charges as recruits in this evolution were changed with equal frequency. The result of this consistent discontinuity was successive failure. Speaking of coaches, when a player is selected on proven merit by whatever criteria, it is not to be expected of a coach to “remake” him in an uncharacteristic mold.
The only reasonable function of a cricket coach appears to be performed by our commentators for our opponents by pointing out exploitable flaws in our technique as batsmen and bowlers, and strategy in field placing leaking runs on third man and long leg and long on boundaries (where it is always better to run in than backward).
As to the establishment of selectors, three out of five of these should be experienced commentators (radio and TV) and only two as former Test players, not necessarily captains either. Groundsmen ought to be co-opted on the principle of choosing horses for courses.
Case in point is the first Test of the current series in Dominica which is notably Shane Shillingford’s hunting ground. Two genuine spinners are mandatory in a Test side there, with a seasoned “grafter” as run scorer batsman.
The middle order of the current side still needs Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who is failing no more than the captain himself. The middle order can hardly be blamed when they are too quickly exposed to the fresh attack that should have been dulled by the openers and No. 3 batsman.
Adam Voges, as a 35-year-old Test debutant scoring an unbeaten 130 when the only genuine spinner was out of commission, shouts something remarkable to the selectors who discarded Chanderpaul too soon.
The future cannot be built on an uncertain foundation as the present.
“Those friends thou hast, and their affection tried, grapple them to thus breast with hoops of steel.”
– LEONARD ST HILL