LONDON, England, CMC – Former West Indies captain Richie Richardson believes Ramnaresh Sarwan and Denesh Ramdin are the leading candidates to succeed Chris Gayle as the next leader of the West Indies cricket team.

In his new column for The Wisden Cricketer website, Richardson said Sarwan should be first in line for the job if Gayle decides to quit.

“If Gayle were to give up the job I would probably go back to Ramnaresh Sarwan, if he wants it, for a period of time. (Shivnarine) Chanderpaul had it for a while but Sarwan has always been one of my favourites as captain of West Indies,” said Richardson.

“If he (Sarwan) is not comfortable, I wouldn’t have a problem giving it to young Denesh Ramdin, he has shown tremendous potential as a cricketer. He has captained in a one-day match and seemed to do ok. I don’t know him very well, but he seems a calm guy and it is obvious that the selectors see some potential in him,” said the Antiguan.

Richardson, who led West Indies in 24 of his 86 Tests, says he can understand Gayle’s headline-making comments this week about the demands of being an international captain.

“He obviously needs a lot of time for himself, which he doesn’t get as captain. I can attest to that. My batting deteriorated after I became captain and one of the reasons was that I didn’t have enough time to focus on my game or put in the type of personal practice and training that I was accustomed to.

“I empathise with him a little where that is concerned, but he’s got to look at himself as well, and if he’s not comfortable with the job, if he doesn’t want it nothing is wrong in expressing that and people have got to respect that,” Richardson said.

The Guardian newspaper broke a contentious story this week, quoting Gayle as saying he was about to quit the West Indies captaincy because of the pressures of the job.

The powerful left-handed opener said a day later that his comments were misinterpreted but he did not appear to back down from comments he made about his preference for Twenty20 cricket over the traditional game, suggesting he made “honest” comments as an “individual”.

Unlike Gayle however, Richardson is in no doubt about the importance of Test cricket.

“I think it’s important to always try to promote the game of Test cricket, because Test cricket is vital to the continued development of all forms of the game. Even though some players are more suited to the shorter version, every player should aspire to play Test cricket – that is the real cricket, the real Test.

“Even though we understand the importance of T20 cricket and the shorter forms of the game, we should always look forward to Test cricket, it is the ultimate and everything should be done to preserve this format of the game,” said Richardson, who averaged 47.90 in 62 Tests as a batsman, but only 35.18 in 24 Tests as captain.