DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, CMC – Not a single West Indies player has made it into the International Cricket Council’s Test or One-Day International team-of-the-year for 2015.
Players from five nations comprise the Test side while those from seven nations make up the one-day side but no players from the Caribbean have found favour with the selection panel headed by legendary former India spinner Anil Kumble.
West Indies languish at number eight in the ICC Test rankings and number nine in the ODI tables. Significantly also, there are no West Indies players in the top ten of either the Test or ODI player batting rankings.
Discarded veteran left-hander Shiv Chanderpaul is the highest ranked West Indies Test batsman at 14th while fast bowler Kemar Roach lies 15th in the bowling rankings.
In ODIs, West Indies batsmen do not feature inside the top 30 with stroke-maker Marlon Samuels the highest ranked at 33rd.
Ironically, off-spinner Sunil Narine tops the ODI bowling rankings but was on Sunday banned from bowling by the ICC because of an illegal action.
Kumble said selecting the 12-man squads had been a difficult task for the panel.
“Team selection is one of the toughest jobs and when you have a large pool of outstanding players to select from in a 12-month period then it becomes even more difficult,” he said. “Testament to the quality of cricket played is the calibre of players to have missed out on selection. While selecting these squads, the selectors considered various combinations and took into account several factors in overall performances.”
England’s Alistair Cook leads the Test team that includes teammate and World number one batsman Joe Root, Australia’s David Warner and prolific New Zealander Kane Williamson.
Three Pakistanis – batsman Younis Khan, wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed and leg-spinner Yasir Shah – were also included.
The one-day line-up, meanwhile, is captained by South Africa’s AB de Villiers who has made the squad for the fourth time in five years, and joins fellow countrymen Hashim Amla and Imran Tahir as the three Proteas players in the side.
Bangladesh’s 20-year-old left-arm pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman was named in the squad, becoming the first ever player from that country to be selected in an ICC one-day team-of-the-year.
