It is anyone’s guess what the collective reaction is to the recent sacking of Jason Holder and Carlos Braithwaite as white-ball captains of the West Indies one-day and T20 teams and the subsequent appointment of 32-year old Kieron Pollard as the region’s new limited-overs and T20 skipper.
I can imagine there are mixed responses to the foregoing. I dare say the right decision was made.
I do not want to bore you with Holder’s unimpressive win percentage since he took over in 2015 or Braithwaite’s inconsistent output as a leader but something had to give.
Holder, who captained West Indies in 86 ODIs, won 24 matches and lost 54. During that time, he had two failed World Cup appearances as skipper – in 2015 and the most recent in 2019.
Surely, as a region, that is not a standard we should accept and the board’s decision to remove the towering Bajan from the helm must be applauded.
Accordingly, the man who is tasked with shaping the way forward – Pollard – in my mind is best equipped for the job. Pollard is an experienced campaigner, a veteran of 101 ODIs.
He is at the ideal age to build a team around West Indies 2023 World Cup prospects.
Speaking to SportsMax during a recent telephone interview, Vice President of Cricket West Indies (CWI) Dr Kishore Shallow made an excellent point about Pollard’s appointment.
He argued that the CWI is emulating the English mode of split captaincy where Joe Root and Eoin Morgan are Test and ODI captains, respectively.
The latter is credited with bringing a fresh and aggressive approach to the team and look at the returns: a well-deserved world title. The point is, Shallow was spot on, and the same can and should be expected of Pollard.
He is the type of player who brings that aggressive demeanor to the fore. You know he is in charge when he wears the captain’s armband and should he manage to improve his personal performance – the only worrying factor surrounding his appointment – then I can see the other 10 players rallying around him.
The second aspect which I gathered from Shallow’s observation has to the do with the team that will be given to Pollard. A few bold decisions will have to be made and the new coach will have to be someone who can get players to embrace and execute individual roles for the collective good. England, under Morgan, mastered it and West Indies will have to if they are to be successful in today’s while-ball format.
For starters, I would hand Devon Thomas a recall and ask him to bat at the top order along with Evin Lewis; they are both aggressive players and the right and left combination is ideal. John Campbell, for me, should absorb Test level.
Shai Diego Hope is the automatic number three, while Shimron Hetmyer is good
enough to bat at four. Pollard, because of his reasonability, should bat at five, spitting up Hetmyer and Nicholas Pooran who would make an excellent number six batter.
It gets tricky from here since the selectors would have to make another bold call on whether to stick with either Holder, Andre Russell, Braithwaite or Rovman Powell. There should only be room for one.
I would go with Holder because of the bowling credentials; the clouds over Russell’s fitness and his inability to possibly make it to 2023 is a major concern.
Fabian Allen is the new Swiss army knife player; he slots in at eight and provides the spin-bowling option. The rest of the bowling department could comprise of either Keemo Paul, Sheldon Cottrell, Oshane Thomas, Obed McCoy or the emerging Romario Shepherd.
I placed little emphasis on T20 because it is such a fluid format with players managing workload etc., but I would argue that Sherfane Rutherford should be given a go under Pollard’s regime. You simply cannot afford to ignore what he offers. It may even be his audition for ODIs.
