At last some positive news from the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) with the prospect of more to come.
The reactivation of the ‘A’ team, for the first time in three years, and its exhaustive, and potentially exhausting, schedule over the next few months, announced Friday, offers necessary international experience to the next generation of players whose development at home is stymied by the limitations of the one-round, first-class tournament, the unsatisfactory conditions and the continuing lack of a central academy.
Between April 16 and July 8, six first-class, 15 Fifty50 and two Twenty20 matches in Grenada, Bangladesh, Ireland and England have been listed against a variety of opponents.
They engage their counterparts from Bangladesh and South Africa and England and India in separate three-way, Fifty50 tournaments, play Zimbabwe in the build-up to the World Twenty20 championship, and take on English county, Glamorgan, and the strongest of the ICC associates, Ireland.
That such a programme coincides directly with the World Twenty20 (April 30-May 16) and the tour by South Africa (May 19-June 30) presents a challenge, and an opportunity, for the selectors.
Limited to 15 players for the Twenty20 event, they would want an appreciably bigger squad for the two Twenty20s, five ODIs and three Tests that follow against South Africa to insure against lack of form and injuries, two increasingly common afflictions of West Indies teams.
They used 21 players in all matches for home series against the Australians in 2008 and 18 against England last year so might want to retain around 25 this time, leaving the rest of the field open for the `A’ team.
In any case, it should not be difficult (although we’re talking about the WICB here) to fly a required player back to the Caribbean from Bangladesh or England within a few days.
When England ‘A’ toured the West Indies three years ago, for instance, Alistair Cook was summoned from Antigua to India and made 60 and 104 not-out in his debut Test in Nagpur soon after arrival.
Clyde Butts and his fellow selectors are sensible enough to know that as much as they want to use these tours to test out the promising juniors at a higher level in alien environments, it is essential to include a few experienced heads, those who have been there, done that but are no longer realistic choices in the senior side.
Even more vital are the manager (the admirable Omar Khan is already installed), coach and captain (still to be chosen).
It would be better to abandon the scheme altogether than have a repetition of the indisciplined fiasco the last time a West Indies ‘A’ team toured, to England and Ireland in 2003, under the captaincy of Daren Ganga. bWisden reported that “the side often looked more like a rag-tag collection of freebooters than a cricket team.” It was, the game’s acknowledged bible wrote, “a bad-tempered, unproductive meander through the backwaters of English cricket rather than an exhilarating fast stream to the top.” It continued: “It was a gloomy tour, which demonstrated how badly the gleaming pride of past West Indies sides had rusted.”
Joel Garner was the manager, as he presently is of the senior team. He acknowledged that the standard of behaviour was unacceptable. The coach, Gus Logie, said that there was “a breakdown in respect for one another within the team.”
Sulieman Benn, Tino Best and Runako Morton were fined for their indiscretions. Others came close to censure. Yet the Jamaican wicket-keeper Keith Hibbert was the only one in the squad not to graduate to the senior team where attitudes, and results, have improved little.
A few factors indicate that things should be different this time.
In 2002, the ‘A’ team’s opponents were mostly counties which regarded the matches as an unwelcome interruption in their season and used them as a chance to rest their best players. They had no context and did nothing to stimulate either team, except in a negative way.
Now, except for the four-day game against Glamorgan, all are internationals. Those in Bangladesh and England feature a three-way series leading to a final.
In addition, there were no lucrative retainer contracts as incentive for performance back then, as there have been of late, and no Indian Premier League (IPL) scouts on the lookout for new talent.
Although not yet publicised (for some reason the WICB remains secretive about even the most mundane matters), all this will coincide with the overdue launching of the academy, or high performance centre as it will be reportedly known, at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI).
A coordinator for the centre was appointed some time ago, if without reference to the WICB’s cricket committee and with no official confirmation, and has been getting things ready over the past couple of months. He is a 38-year-old Welshman, Toby Radford, who had brief playing stints with Middlesex and Sussex before becoming director of the Middlesex academy and the county’s first team coach. A head coach and assistant at the centre are still to be chosen or, at least, revealed to the public.
The presence of another foreigner in a position of influence is bound to displease many, given the experience with the two recent Australian head coaches. But at least something is happening – at last.
West Indies A vs. Zimbabwe in Grenada
April 16-19: at Grenada National Stadium
April 22: T20 at Grenada National Stadium
April 24: T20 at Progress Park
West Indies A in Bangladesh
(Venues KSOS – Khan Shaheb Osman Ali Stadium and BKSP – Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protisthan)
May 2: arrive in Dhaka
May 4: Bangladesh A vs. South Africa A at KSOS
May 5: West Indies A vs. South Africa A at KSOS
May 7: West Indies A vs. Bangladesh A at KSOS
May 8: Bangladesh A vs. South Africa A at KSOS
May 10: West Indies A vs. South Africa A at KSOS
May 11: West Indies A vs. Bangladesh A at KSOS
May 13: FINAL at KSOS
May 15-18: West Indies A vs. Bangladesh A at BKSP
May 21-May 24: West Indies A vs. Bangladesh A at BKSP
May 25: depart Dhaka
West Indies A in England and Ireland
June 2: arrive England
June 5-7: vs. Glamorgan at SWALEC
June 10-13: vs. India A at Grace Road
June 17-20: vs. India A at Whitgift School, Croydon
June 23: vs. Ireland at Belfast Stormont
June 25: vs. Ireland at Belfast Stormont
Tri-nation One-Day Series
June 28: West Indies A vs. India A at Northampton
June 29: West Indies vs. England Lions at Northampton
July 1: England Lions vs. India A at Grace Road, Leicester
July 2: West Indies A vs. India A at Grace Road, Leicester
July 4: West Indies A vs. England Lions at New Road, Worcester
July 6: England Lions vs. India A at New Road, Worcester
July 8: FINAL at New Road, Leicester
(If West Indies A do not make final – vs. Lancashire at Old Trafford)
