(Jamaica Gleaner) The talismanic Christopher Gayle, who earlier this year led Jamaica to the regional Super50 title, will miss the Caribbean Twenty20 due to the fact that he was denied a release by his club, the Sydney Thunder, in the Australia KFC Twenty20 Big Bash League, which is slated to end on January 28.
Chairman of the national selection panel, Courtnay Daley, told The Gleaner that Gayle tried, but in the end could not secure a release to represent the country in this month’s Caribbean Twenty20 Tournament, which is set to bowl off next week Monday.
The Caribbean Twenty20, to be hosted jointly by Antigua and Barbados, will be held between January 9-22.
“He (Gayle) wanted to, like Trinidad’s Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard, leave the Big Bash at its midway stage and come and play for us, but his club said that they could not allow it,” explained Daley.
“This was on the basis that the club’s captain, David Warner, who is the other big-name player in the team, is playing with Australia’s Test team and as such they could not afford to miss their two big-name players, especially towards the end of the league.”
Bravo is slated to join up with Trinidad team on Saturday, while Pollard is already in the twin-island republic after returning earlier than planned due to a hamstring injury.
Jamaica, in the absence of Gayle, will be led by all-rounder David Bernard Jr, who will have at his disposal a fairly young and inexperienced team after the selectors decided to leave out Xavier Marshall, Brenton Parchment, Andrew Richardson and former captain Tamar Lambert from the team’s 14-man squad.
Jamaica have been drawn in Group B of the tournament and will open their account against the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) on Tuesday, January 10 at the Vivian Richards Cricket Ground in Antigua. The group is completed by English Club Sussex, the Netherlands and Barbados.
Group A includes champions Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, the Windward Isnalds, Leeward Islands and Guyana.
Good chance
“The team is a somewhat youthful one, but I think we have a good chance as any as quite a good number of teams over the years have used the platform of cricket to expose some of their young players, including Trinidad,” said Daley.
“Also, this is Twenty20 cricket and it really comes down to who plays best on the day.”
He added: “I think that if anything is to go against us it is the fact that most of our games will be played as day/night encounters under light, which most of our players are not that used to.
“But a number of the players would have done so during our recent Super50 triumph and in the past, both with Jamaica and the West Indies, and we hope that their experience will be able to pull us through.”
The national selection panel also includes Delroy Morgan and coach Junior Bennett.
Squad: David Bernard Jr (capt), Danza Hyatt, Kenar Lewis, Marlon Samuels, André McCarthy, Horace Miller, Nkrumah Bonner, Shawn Findlay, Andre Russell, Carlton Baugh Jr, Nikita Miller, Odean Brown, Sheldon Cotterell, Krishmar Santokie.
Reserves: Simon Jackson, Xavier Marshall, Damion Jacobs, Andrew Richardson.
