BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Axed Trinidad and Tobago Red Force wicketkeeper/batsman Denesh Ramdin has blasted the team’s selectors and has gone as far as accusing coach Mervyn Dillon of not wanting him around.
In an interview on the Mason & Guest radio show here Tuesday, the former West Indies captain said the disrespect of senior players by the selectors and the uncertainty team members were feeling were affecting morale.
The veteran cricket, who chairman of selectors Tony Gray said had been omitted from the 13-man squad for the sixth and seventh rounds of the tournament because of a lack of form, added that there was a serious problem in communication between players and management.
“They’re not respecting our senior players…They are doing their own thing, basically,” the former Red Force skipper said, adding that he was not the only experienced player who has been overlooked.
“Ravi Rampaul was available for the whole season and they just bypassed him. When you look around there’s no one who can bowl faster than this guy. He helps the younger players.”
In the two matches he played for Red Force this season, Ramdin batted three times and scored just 16 in one instance and two ducks in the others. He ended last season with 348 runs, including two half-centuries, at an average of almost 22.
Ramdin admitted being “shocked and surprised” at being dropped, adding that the chairman of selectors had told him to “play club cricket”.
“Our system is very strange. They will call you and let you know when you get dropped, but when you get selected you have to read it in the news. It’s very disrespectful,” he told radio show hosts Andrew Mason and Dr Andrew Forde.
“I’m not sure what message they’re sending to the younger players because at the moment they have players who think that if you get a low score you’re going to be out the next game, so guys are not comfortable in the game. They’re scratching here, they’re scratching there, they’re wondering ‘if I don’t make runs this game, I’m gone the next game’.”
Ramdin said he would have loved to captained the team for one more season, to give the younger players guidance, but believed he was not appreciated or wanted by Dillon, with whom he said he did not “see eye-to-eye”.
“That’s what we’re lacking in the Caribbean at this point in time – the guidance of the younger players to do certain things, but our coach at the moment, I don’t think he wants me around,” he charged.
“I believe he just wants a young group of guys that he can dictate and use them to go forward, but this Four-Day Tournament you need senior players around so that when pressure comes you’d be able to handle it a lot better.”
Red Force is going into the next round of the six-team tournament in fifth place, on 46.6 points. Barbados Pride lead the standings with 84.2 points, ahead of defending champions Guyana Jaguars on 60.8 points. They are followed by Jamaica Scorpions on 57.4 points and Windward Islands Volcanoes on 50 points. Leeward Islands Hurricanes round up the bottom with 32.6 points.
In addition to Ramdin, four others were dropped from the Red Force squad which is led by Yannick Ottley. Ramdin, Yannic Cariah, Keagan Simmons, Kissoondath Magram and Daniel St Clair have been replaced by fast bowler Anderson Phillip, veteran leg-spinner Imran Khan, spinner Khary Pierre, batsman Isaiah Rajah, and former West Indies Under-19 batsman Cephas Cooper.
