Quote:Simmons Richie and Williams will now pick the Final 14 ....
These three should not have the power to select the final team. Everyone who follows West Indies cricket knows they are dumbasses. I loved Richie in the early 90s, and he was a master of the hook shot, but psychologically and tactically he is still a dumbass. I might trust these guys with coaching or whatever Williams does nowadays, but not final team selection. Final team selection requires a kind of objectivity, tactical nous and foresight that none of them has.
I think Ramdin, Chanders and Holder are the new passengers. The selectors need to be brave and move Holder up the order and treat him like Kallis. If you hide him down the order, he will become like Sammy. Treating Holder as a proper batsman also frees you up to play 2 spinners and 2 or 3 serious fast bowlers.
Ramdin might be an excellent glove-man, but he ain't Bajan. These new Bajans are tight and have superpowers. Chase, Dowrich, Hope, Brooks, Paint...these guys have a seriousness about them and are out-averging everyone domestically. You need to get a look at least 2 of them during the England series.
Chanders is a passenger in the sense that we know he is gone as soon as he breaks Lara's record. He can maintain his standards for another 24 months I reckon, but he won't be allowed to do this. The selectors will wait for him to break the record, then they will announce his retirement on the tour immediately after. What they should have done is announced his retirement after this England tour, had faith that he will break the record and then given him a big home send-off. The downside to this is that we play Australia at home after England, and Australia will sodomize us without Chanders. If the WICB are really stupid, they will keep Chanders for our overseas tours after the Caribbean Premiere League, or wait (unlikely) for a test to be scheduled in Guyana. I feel this is unfair to many promising domestic players, many of whom are Guyanese themselves.
But my point is, you have to select a test team based on the premise that Chanders is going and that we can do better than Ramdin.
