CAS­TRIES–West In­dies Crick­et Board chief ex­ec­u­tive Ernest Hi­laire has dis­pelled any no­tion of a St Lu­cian na­tion­al­ist agen­da with the choice of Dar­ren Sam­my for West In­dies cap­tain. Hi­laire's re­marks came fol­low­ing the ap­point­ment of the 26-year-old Sam­my to the helm of the re­gion­al team un­til the end of the 2011 Dig­i­cel Home Se­ries. He stressed that Sam­my, the first Test crick­eter to emerge from St Lu­cia, was not cho­sen on any oth­er cri­te­ria oth­er than his per­for­mance and lead­er­ship qual­i­ties.

"For me it is not about St Lu­cia or any small coun­try. It's about the man who is best suit­ed for the job," Hi­laire con­tend­ed. "I think through­out our op­er­a­tions we want to build a mer­i­toc­ra­cy that peo­ple get pro­mot­ed, they get ad­vance­ment [and] they are of­fered re­tain­er con­tracts based on their per­for­mance. "I think we re­leased re­cent­ly our se­lec­tion cri­te­ria. There is a very clear per­for­mance stan­dards doc­u­ment that has been pre­pared for all play­ers and no mat­ter which coun­try you are from, if you per­form, if you meet the stan­dards you will ad­vance in West In­dies crick­et."

Three key po­si­tions in West In­dies crick­et are held by St Lu­cians, with Ju­lian Hunte serv­ing as pres­i­dent and Hi­laire as CEO. Sam­my's first tour of du­ty will be lead­ing the em­bat­tled re­gion­al side on a three-Test tour of Sri Lan­ka start­ing next month. (CMC)