IT IS hardly surprising that Barbados struggled through this year’s WICB regional first-class championship.
National coach Vasbert Drakes has publicly asked that fans remain patient with the players, but the same request has been coming from the West Indies firmament for the last decade, and our slide in the international game remains unchecked – so sorry, mate, our patience is running thin.
The players, however, will be happy to hear that blame is not principally going to be applied to them. It should fall squarely at the doorsteps of the national selection panel and the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA).
The selection panel, headed by George Linton, should take the lion’s share of the blame because the basis of their choices this year was flawed and this compromised Barbados’ chances.
Untested players
At the start of the season, Linton outlined that they were going to choose several young, untested players in the side – admirable; and hope that they pull through to carry Barbados’ chances – perilous.
He noted that the thinking behind their choices would be to expose more players, so that they can gain selection to the West Indies team. This is an admirable aim, but it is not based on reality.
It seemed that the authorities believe that Barbados has had a problem placing players on the West Indies team in recent times.
This is hardly the case. A check of player debuts for Test matches alone would show that 29 players from Barbados made their debuts for West Indies over the last decade. Only Jamaica had more (33) and the next best was Trinidad and Tobago with 22.
Ironically, at a time when the national team was struggling, Barbados ended up with three players – Sulieman Benn, Kemar Roach, and Kirk Edwards – on the West Indies World Cup squad.
Unfortunate
Also, Tino Best was a reserve for the World Cup, and could have gone to the tournament, but thanks again to the same selectors and the same BCA, his chance passed; and had Fidel Edwards been fit, he would have been an automatic choice.
The selectors should also note that Ryan Hinds was thought to be unfortunate not to have been chosen in the West Indies squad in the first place.
Others like Kevin Stoute, Jason Haynes and Jonathan Carter, two players shunted by the selectors in recent competitions, as well as Kraigg Brathwaite, Jason Holder, and Shane Dowrich have benefited from West Indies “A” team experience in the last year.
So the selectors and the BCA should not concern themselves too much about placing players on the West Indies team.
Their challenge is to prepare players to such an extent that when they make the West Indies team, they remain there. This has been the problem more than anything else with Barbadian players in recent years.
It is in this area that the BCA can take full responsibility for what unfolded this season. Its development policies and programmes are not working, and the administrators need to seriously address them.
Is it not funny that the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC), the side which many Barbadians and, indeed, fans in the region have described as Barbados “A’” or Barbados “B”, have outstripped the Barbados team proper in this year’s competition?
Our selectors, national and regional, and surely our cricket administrators in total must understand that you cannot experiment with players in competitions. The regional first-class championship, the regional one-day competition, and the Caribbean Twenty20 Championship are all one rung under international level.
We need players ready to perform – and from the looks of it, the CCC got it right with several Barbadian players at its core.
Sorry to burst the bubble of the good folk behind the CCC, but it is a developmental side expected to be competitive, if not as successful as they have been this year.
They have an embarrassment of Barbadian resources available to them, yet the national team languished because of the cloudy thinking of our selectors and the BCA hierarchy.
Please do not use the excuse that the players have a choice about for whom they can play. Administrators on both sides have been at pains to say publicly that the territorial sides come first, and the CCC gets to choose from the remainder.
It also says much about the Barbados national team programme if some players are making the CCC their first choice because they feel more comfortable and welcomed than in their national side.
Selectors George Linton (third right), Mike Inniss (second left) and Winston Reid (third left). Also from left, Hendy Springer, Desmond Haynes and Emmerson Trotman.
Adriel Richard is a sports correspondent/anchor for the Caribbean Media Corporation.