– claims Jamaican journalist
The selection of the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) team for the forthcoming West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) first-class tournament has been challenged in a Jamaican newspaper.
Writing in the Jamaica Observer yesterday, Hartley Anderson said he viewed “with bemusement and surprise,” the announcement of the squad following a trial match in Barbados last week.
He charged that, since the CCC was included in the annual tournament in 2008, the criteria for team selection “has been shrouded in secrecy, with cricket fans around the region having to be groping in the dark and second-guessing in order to unravel its real essence.”
He queried the reinstatement as captain of Floyd Reifer, whom he referred to as a “37-year-old underachiever,” instead of the Jamaican Simon Jackson, who led the team in 2008.
It was, he claimed, “a backward step and a clear insistence on maintaining the ‘old guard’ at all cost,” adding that it pointed to “a paucity of leadership among the college players.”
Given there are eight “virtually unrecognisable” Barbadians in the squad of 13 (there were 11 out of the 19 who played last season) Anderson argued that Barbados has been “effectively allowed to field two teams in the tournament” with the CCC run as “an unofficial Bajan ‘B’ team.”
“Ironically, if any territory deserved to field a ‘B’ team it wouldn’t be Barbados, but rather Jamaica or T&T (Trinidad and Tobago) by virtue of recent results, strength and organisation of their cricketing programmes, especially at the youth level, the depth of players at their disposal, and their current impact and contribution to the senior West Indies team,” he added.
Anderson said he presumed the reason for the establishment of the CCC team by the WICB is “the mobilisation of a core of players from the tertiary institutions across the region who possess the requisite aptitude and attitude for the game, who fall just below the first-team standard of their individual territories, who can provide options for the West Indies selectors in the future and who will simultaneously function as a Development Squad.”
“Since its conception a few seasons ago, the composition of successive CCC teams has done little to dispel the accusations of discrimination and insularity, with this latest episode merely adding fuel to the fire,” he alleged.
Anderson noted that Nkrumah Bonner of Jamaica and Kjorn Ottley of Trinidad and Tobago, both 20, and Raymond Reifer of Barbados, 19, all made hundreds in the pre-season trial match but could not find places on the team.
He also wondered why Jamaicans Zeniffe Fowler and Shacoya Thomas, 20, could not find places on the team.
CCC start their season against Trinidad and Tobago in Jamaica on Friday. (TC).