PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Former West Indies selector Joey Carew has urged the West Indies Cricket Board to take the radical step of appointing Daren Ganga as West Indies captain.
Carew’s has come against the backdrop of Trinidad & Tobago’s win over Deccan Chargers in the Twenty20 Champions League on Wednesday, where Ganga was credited with excellent leadership of the Caribbean side.
He said Ganga’s leadership and tactics had been exemplary and pointed out these were qualities currently needed by the West Indies.
“T&T, under Ganga’s captaincy is a team, and I emphasise a team, which is strong as any other in this competition and I hope that I am correct in predicting that they will go all the way to the final,” the former Trinidad & Tobago and West Indies opener contended.
“We tend to under-rate the effort of the T&T team on their wonderful performance, both at regional and now, international level. It must be to Ganga’s leadership that we are able in many adverse circumstances to turn around the result in our favour.”
T&T have been the surprise team at the Champions League, defending moderate totals to pull off shock wins over Somerset and Deccan Chargers and reach the second round.
Ganga’s form, however, has been less than impressive with scores of 23 and 0 in his two innings.
His small taste of the West Indies captaincy so far has been also less than stellar. Following an injury to captain Ramnaresh Sarwan on the 2007 tour of England, he led the side in the two final Tests of the series, overseeing defeats by 60 runs and seven wickets respectively.
His personal form also suffered as he managed to scrape together 11 runs from four innings.
The 30-year-old Ganga has not played for the West Indies in almost two years, after being dropped following the 2007/08 tour of South Africa where he managed a meagre 117 runs from six innings at an average of 19.5.
He has enjoyed much success at the regional level, however, where he has led T&T to several titles in recent years.
Deryck Murray, the T&T Cricket Board president, was also quick to hail Ganga’s leadership abilities.
“Ganga has shown great leadership qualities which has been proven over the last few years,” said Murray, also a WICB director.
“He has instilled positive team spirit and high morale values to the team, which is an example for the other Caribbean territories to follow.
“Under his captaincy the team is measuring up to international standard, which is a tribute to the tremendous amount of work, the local board is doing, although there is still room for improvement.”
Overall, Ganga has scored 2160 runs in 48 Tests, since making his debut 11 years ago against the South Africans.
