Valenti­no Singh

Why did it take over one year for chair­man of the West In­dies crick­et se­lec­tion pan­el, Clyde Butts to meet with Lendl Sim­mons? Tours have come and tour­na­ments have been played and the ver­sa­tile T&T play­er and his sup­port­ers have been left won­der­ing why, de­spite his per­for­mances, Sim­mons has not been con­sid­ered for se­lec­tion on the West In­dies team, not even the sec­ond string 'A' team! He was nev­er in­formed of any dis­ci­pli­nary charges against him, yet the treat­ment met­ed out to him by Butts and his co-pan­elists, Court­ney Browne and Robert Haynes, at­tach­es an au­thor­i­ty to the trio's role which, I am afraid, they sim­ply do not pos­sess.

Let me make it clear, I have no prob­lem with play­ers be­ing dis­ci­plined. But in my hum­ble view, the role of Butts and com­pa­ny is to se­lect the best pos­si­ble team to rep­re­sent the re­gion. There is a WICB com­mit­tee, if my mem­o­ry serves me right, to deal with dis­ci­pline. Un­less that body au­tho­ris­es or rec­om­mends that ac­tion be tak­en against a play­er, the se­lec­tors have NO right to rep­ri­mand any­one on the ba­sis of dis­ci­pline. Of course, if the se­lec­tors have knowl­edge of peo­ple's at­ti­tude sti­fling their per­for­mance and growth, it is all well for them to in­ter­vene.

If that was the case with Sim­mons, that's fine. But a year to do it?! In an en­vi­ron­ment in which the West In­dies could do with every ounce of its best play­ers? Un­less he can pro­vide a good ex­pla­na­tion for the de­lay, Butts needs a lick­ing! Sure­ly, even he must know some­thing is wrong here. I won­der if Butts ever spoke to Sulie­man Benn af­ter he point­ed­ly re­fused to bowl when Chris Gayle hand­ed him the ball dur­ing the ODI game against South Africa last year? Is that an at­ti­tude prob­lem or a dis­ci­pli­nary one?

Butt that's an­oth­er sto­ry!

Sim­mons played for T&T an en­tire year. You mean the chair­man of se­lec­tors was nev­er present at any of those match­es. Couldn't he have spo­ken to Sim­mons then? Even if he had to get the T&T Crick­et Board in­volved, couldn't he have IN­SIST­ED on a meet­ing with Sim­mons dur­ing the re­gion­al tour­na­ment last Feb­ru­ary? I raise these ques­tions, not on­ly in light of Sim­mons' sol­id per­for­mances in the just con­clud­ed CT20 tour­na­ment which would have made him an au­to­mat­ic choice on the best West In­dies team for the World Cup, but to again high­light the ab­sence of in­tel­li­gence which con­tin­ues to blight our crick­et. As it is, we head off to the World Cup with­out our top 15 play­ers. Sim­mons apart, the team is unimag­i­na­tive to say the least.

If Sar­wan can be se­lect­ed, why not Mar­lon Samuels? Any­one who has been watch­ing Ramdin and Baugh, will know one is chalk and the oth­er cheese. Per­haps Butts has al­so put the cheese un­der 'dis­ci­pli­nary' charges, and will talk to him in a year's time. I fail to see the mer­it in se­lect­ing two left arm spin­ners - Benn and Miller. Sure­ly there must be an­oth­er spin­ner who can bowl as eco­nom­i­cal­ly and pro­vide greater va­ri­ety? And while I am on it, it will be in­ter­est­ing to find out who is the vice cap­tain since we may well end up with the cap­tain hav­ing to stay on the bench in the best in­ter­est of the team.

I hon­est­ly can't see Dar­ren Sam­my get­ting in­to the fi­nal 11. He is no Mike Brear­ley and al­though they both share the first name, nei­ther is he a Gan­ga. In spite of its in­ad­e­qua­cies, there is enough tal­ent in the squad for us to be op­ti­mistic and I would hard­ly be sur­prised if the West In­dies do well. Such a re­sult will not change my opin­ion that the best play­ers have not been se­lect­ed.

I would like to say we will win, Butt......!