Nicholas Clarke

For­mer West In­dies crick­eter and cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tor at the Queen's Park Crick­et Club Bryan Davis has sided with all­rounder Kieron Pol­lard in his de­ci­sion to play for the Eng­lish coun­ty crick­et. Pol­lard signed to play with Som­er­set in their do­mes­tic Twen­ty20 sea­son rather than join­ing the West In­dies A team for a Tri-Na­tions lim­it­ed overs se­ries in­volv­ing In­dia A and the Eng­land Li­ons in the same coun­try. Pol­lard is not con­tract­ed with the West In­dies Crick­et Board and ac­cord­ing to West In­dies Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine, "he signed his con­tract with Som­er­set a long time be­fore the squad was an­nounced."

Go­ing by this in­for­ma­tion, Davis said the 23-year-old was with­in his rights to turn the WICB's of­fer down. "I can on­ly go by what I've read in the news­pa­pers but I fig­ure [Pol­lard] is on­ly fol­low­ing his com­mon sense. If he is of­fered a con­tract with a club and his sched­ule is clear, I can't see why he shouldn't sign with them," he told the Guardian. "He is a free agent so he is al­lowed to sign up and play any­where. "Had he been se­lect­ed by the board be­fore mak­ing a deal with Som­er­set then I think he would be ob­lig­at­ed to join the A team but that is not the case," he said. Mean­while, T&T crick­et team man­ag­er Col­in Bor­de said that the WICB should let the time­line of events be made pub­lic so that a more in­formed as­sess­ment could be made of the sit­u­a­tion. He al­so point­ed out that Som­er­set could take le­gal ac­tion if Pol­lard re­neged on his con­tract.

"If he leaves Som­er­set to join the A team then what po­si­tion would the coun­ty be in af­ter the sign­ing pe­ri­od has al­ready closed?" He added that the in­ci­dent would bring cer­tain is­sues to light which need­ed to be ad­dressed. "Where are the guide­lines for pro­fes­sion­al crick­eters that are not con­tract­ed," he asked. "How are they to go about mak­ing their liv­ing? If they are field­ing of­fers from around the world, should they turn them down so they can wait around to be picked? These are the ques­tions that need to be asked." Bor­de al­so dis­missed sug­ges­tions that Pol­lard was putting his own in­ter­ests ahead of those of the re­gion­al team. "I am 100% sure that he is com­mit­ted to West In­dies crick­et and he al­ways has been," he said. For­mer Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Manohar Ram­saran launched a scathing at­tack on the WICB for their treat­ment of the young play­er.

"He has played for the West In­dies in Twen­ty20s and ODIs all year and yet we are be­ing told that he is still not one of the 35 con­tract­ed play­ers. They need to in­di­cate who these play­ers are and ex­plain why Pol­lard is not one of them. This is dis­turb­ing news and just goes to show how in­com­pe­tent the WICB is. The en­tire Caribbean should wake up and see what is go­ing on. It's a slap in the face. "I was to­tal­ly flab­ber­gast­ed that the Board could be an­gry with him. They are the ones to be blamed for not con­tract­ing him and should be look­ing in­wards in­stead of hand­ing out pun­ish­ment. "Pol­lard did the right thing and should not feel guilty and it's un­for­tu­nate that they are turn­ing the blame on him." Ram­saran said that he watched the all­rounder in ac­tion dur­ing the ODI against South Africa in the Oval last week and was im­pressed with his abil­i­ty. "I think that he has a good fu­ture in the long ver­sion of the game and can be­come a good bowl­ing all­rounder once he de­vel­ops some vari­a­tion and be­comes more cir­cum­spect with his bat­ting" he said. "He is al­so the best field­er team."