SPORTS DESK

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) has ex­pressed its con­cern and dis­may over the omis­sion of Red Force cap­tain Dar­ren Bra­vo from the West In­dies T20 In­ter­na­tion­al squad re­cent­ly named by the se­lec­tion com­mit­tee to play Eng­land in the Caribbean.

The TTCB is call­ing on Chair­man of Se­lec­tors Desmond Haynes to ful­ly ex­plain what cri­te­ria are be­ing used to de­ny the left-hand­ed bats­man re­gion­al se­lec­tion af­ter a stel­lar sea­son with the bat.

In a Me­dia state­ment yes­ter­day, TTCB Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Altaf Baksh, the TTCB says its dis­ap­point­ment is a re­flec­tion of the gen­er­al feel­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and around the Caribbean that the el­e­gant stroke play­er is be­ing pun­ished for what is still un­clear.

The TTCB states ac­cord­ing to the sta­tis­tics, Bra­vo has been one of the most pro­lif­ic run-get­ters in Caribbean crick­et av­er­ag­ing 96.2, 65.0, 48, and 83.2 re­spec­tive­ly over the past four years.

“In­deed, Haynes and his fel­low CWI se­lec­tors un­be­liev­ably dis­card­ed Bra­vo’s spec­tac­u­lar per­for­mance in the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Cup Tour­na­ment in lead­ing the Red Force to their record-break­ing lien on the re­gion­al tro­phy,’ Baksh pos­tu­lates.

Bra­vo copped the Gold­en Bat scor­ing 416 runs with a high­est of 139 not out, he had three half-cen­turies and a ta­ble-top­ping av­er­age of 83.2 which was bet­ter than any oth­er bats­man se­lect­ed on the team to face Eng­land.

Justin Greaves, who scored 403 runs (one cen­tu­ry and 3 half-cen­turies) is un­avail­able for se­lec­tion due to an in­jury he sus­tained in the tour­na­ment. The oth­er bats­men who showed up with the bat are Bra­vo com­pa­tri­ot Kjorn Ot­t­ley who scored 317 runs with one cen­tu­ry, cap­tain Shai Hope (219 runs), Al­ick Athanaze (276), and Sher­fane Ruther­ford (265).

The TTCB al­so thinks it is lu­di­crous for Haynes to sug­gest as he did in a me­dia con­fer­ence last week, that the rea­son for Bra­vo’s re­jec­tion, de­spite his cur­rent form and record, was that the CWI is “in­vest­ing” in play­ers with an eye on fu­ture tour­na­ments years away.

The ter­ri­to­r­i­al board in­ter­prets Haynes’ ex­pla­na­tion as hol­low and a slap in the face of Caribbean crick­eters who are now be­ing told that qual­i­ty per­for­mances do not mer­it re­gion­al se­lec­tion any­more.

The TTCB state­ment laments the change of pol­i­cy by the re­gion­al se­lec­tors as cov­er for in­ex­plic­a­ble team se­lec­tion, and in­im­i­cal to the fu­ture of West In­dies crick­et which fur­ther serves to dis­cour­age and sti­fle re­gion­al tal­ent.

In years past, in­su­lar­i­ty reared its ug­ly head and was re­spon­si­ble for de­stroy­ing the ca­reers of many West In­dies crick­eters be­cause of eth­nic and ter­ri­to­r­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions.

On Tues­day, for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Dwayne Bra­vo con­demned the se­lec­tors for snub­bing his broth­er, Red Force cap­tain, 34-year-old Dar­ren Bra­vo.

He said, “When will the BS stop?! I’m not sur­prised by my broth­er’s non-se­lec­tion, but with the re­cent changes in WI crick­et man­age­ment, I held on­to a bit of hope for the bet­ter. This is NOT ac­cept­able, and I just can’t make sense of it!”

He said a clear pol­i­cy on West In­dies se­lec­tion needs to be out­lined.

“So here are my burn­ing ques­tions: What are the cri­te­ria for West In­dies team se­lec­tion? Sure­ly, it can’t be sole­ly based on per­for­mance?

“For two sea­sons, my broth­er show­cased ex­cep­tion­al tal­ent, be­com­ing the lead­ing run-scor­er in the lat­est tour­na­ment with over 400 runs, a bat­ting av­er­age of 83.2, and an SR (strike rate) of 92.

“I usu­al­ly stay away from these dis­cus­sions, but the mis­treat­ment, dis­re­spect, and dis­hon­esty to­wards play­ers over the years de­mand a voice. When will it stop? When will this BS ac­tu­al­ly stop?”

Mean­while, Baksh stat­ed that the TTCB now calls on Haynes and his co-pan­el­lists to lift the veil of se­cre­cy of their pol­i­cy for se­lect­ing the re­gion­al teams and clear up se­ri­ous mis­con­cep­tions ig­nit­ed by non­sen­si­cal rea­sons such as “in­vest­ing” in fu­ture en­gage­ments, when he is not cer­tain to be oc­cu­py­ing the po­si­tion he is cur­rent­ly in.

Haynes must be re­mind­ed that no such in­vest­ment was made in his se­lec­tion on the West In­dies team, but was re­ward­ed for his tremen­dous run of form es­pe­cial­ly in Eng­lish crick­et, to­geth­er with his open­ing part­ner Gor­don Greenidge.

Dar­ren Bra­vo de­serves no less con­sid­er­a­tion based on ex­pe­ri­ence, cur­rent form, lead­er­ship, and ma­tu­ri­ty.

WEST IN­DIES FULL SQUAD

Shai Hope (cap­tain), Alzarri Joseph (vice-cap­tain), Al­ick Athanaze, Yan­nic Cari­ah, Kea­cy Car­ty, Ros­ton Chase, Shane Dowrich, Matthew Forde, Shim­ron Het­my­er, Bran­don King, Gu­dakesh Motie, Kjorn Ot­t­ley, Sher­fane Ruther­ford, Ro­mario Shep­herd, and Os­hane Thomas

MATCH SCHED­ULE

Sun­day 3 De­cem­ber: 1st CG Unit­ed ODI at Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um, An­tigua – 9:30 am

Wednes­day 6 De­cem­ber: 2nd CG Unit­ed ODI at Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um, An­tigua – 1:30 pm

Sat­ur­day 9 De­cem­ber: 3rd CG Unit­ed at Kens­ing­ton Oval, Bar­ba­dos – 1:30 pm