The West Indies Cricket Board’s (WICB) non-selection of all-rounders Keiron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo and Johnathan Carter’s shock inclusion have been the major talking points since the West Indies World Cup team was announced Saturday ending much public speculation.
Since the team’s announcement, cricket gurus both in and out of the Caribbean have bombarded the print and electronic media with articles, letters and opinions.
Many are of the opinion that the duo’s non-selection stemmed from the public fall out between Bravo and company and the WICB following last year’s abandonment of the Indian tour.
Whatever the reasons for overlooking the two players, the team has been left with critical spots to fill leading up to the World Cup as Pollard and Bravo are considered two of the premier limited over players with lots of experience.
The WICB has sprinkled a pinch of salt into that gaping wound by further excluding cricketers from Guyana.
Both Leon Johnson and Narsingh Deonarine, who has worked his way back in the team for the ODI series of the South African tour, were included in the 30-man provisional World Cup squad along with fellow Guyanese and West Indies spinner Veerasammy Permaul who is the leading wicket taker by some margin in the WICB Regional four-day tournament so far.
They all failed to find favour with the panel of distinguished selectors.
Both Johnson and Carter are young prospects if given the chance could benefit from playing at the World Cup. Unfortunately only one was selected, Carter.
At age 27, both batsmen can still take their careers to the pinnacle if given chances but Johnson would have been the better choice in the long run, after all he has been earmarked for great things since he made his debut as a 16 year-old for Guyana.
Johnson has gone on to captain the Guyana national team numerous times, led the West Indies U19 team at the 2005-06 World Cup, made his West Indies ODI debut against Bermuda back in 2008 which he soon followed up by scoring his maiden ODI fifty against Canada.
The left-hander has also made himself a cornerstone player in the West Indies A line up recently with runs against the likes of Sri Lanka and India.
Last season Johnson scored an impressive 1065 runs at an average of 46.2 with two hundreds and six half-centuries from 14 matches in the four-day format and was easily Guyana’s leading batsman.The Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) player then proved his worth as an international Test batsman with half centuries against Bangladesh top scoring with a debut 66 and South Africa with a top score of 54, completing a decent Test tour of South Africa finishing third in the list of overall top scorers in the series behind Marlon Samuels (268) and Kraigg Braithwaite (183) with 186 runs at an average of 33.
Prior to the South African series, the middle-order batsman was also picked in the ODI side to face India during the fiasco hit tour. Despite his prowess as a class act at all levels in the Region and a more than good enough start to his Test career, Johnson has not scored a List ‘A’ century to date while Carter has two under his belt. A closer look at the two players will reveal that carter has the better List A career average.
Johnson averages 28 in his List ‘A’ career with seven half-centuries while Carter brushes past the 32 mark with two hundreds and five fifties.
Carter, who has never played an ODI, received the nod by the selectors who opted to go with the Barbados left hander rather than chancing the in-form left-hander from Guyana in Johnson who has demonstrated time and time again that he is one of the better all-round and technically correct batsman in the Caribbean.
The difference between the two players is not that vast.
While Johnson hasn’t managed to score a limited overs domestic hundred, Carter’s last ton was back in September of 2013 when the he scored 133 for the West Indies A team against India A.
One wonders why until now, despite scoring hundreds in all three formats of cricket regionally, Carter has never been favored by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to don the senior maroon colors.
The former Barbados U19 batsman is aggressive and effective in his approach and it has so far worked for him.
While his talent in the shorter format of the game has been seen from time-to-time, one must still ask if now is the ideal time for him to make his long awaited One Day debut.
Had he been included in the World Cup 15, Johnson could have been a perfect foil in the middle order to the many aggressive and big hitting West Indies batsmen a la Larry Gomes in the all-conquering West Indies teams of the late 1970s and 1980s.
Now though that the team has been selected minus, Bravo, Pollard and the Guyanese including Johnson, those selected men will have to give a good account of themselves during the World Cup.
For Johnson and those who missed out for whatever reason, they will need to continue to prove to the selectors by scoring runs and taking wickets at the highest level, that they merit selection for future engagements. The rest, will be up to the selectors.
