It’s inevitable in sports that not everyone who plays at the junior level will automatically go on to gain a place in the senior set up.
A number of varying factors account for that observation. For instance, the current success of the senior team, slots available and sometimes the competitiveness of that particular era, do not allow everyone to be given an opportunity.
Garvin `Tibbsy’ Nedd for instance, as I’m told, couldn’t fully break into the senior Guyana cricket team in the mid-90s simply because of the presence of Roger Harper and Clyde Butts. Nedd had a well-documented run at the regional under -19 level.
But the most frowned upon the reason for not elevating talent from the junior to the senior level is perhaps the failure to nurture supremely gifted players, who at first glance you concluded surely will go on. Trinidadian Adrian Barath was one such individual.
I first heard about Barath when I was about 14-years-old during an Under – 15 Inter-County tournament here. We were all anticipating a battle during the regional Under – 15 tournament.
I didn’t make the team that year but I subsequently had the opportunity to play against him during the 2008 West Indies Cricket Board (WICB)/TCL-sponsored 2008 Under-19 tournament in Barbados.
It was the final round of the three – day tournament. If I recall correctly, Guyana needed a win to complete the three-peat but the right-hander cracked 96 against us preventing an outright win.
I clearly remember fielding at gully admiring the way he went about his business en-route to a sure ton. Coincidently, Seon Hetmyer – the elder brother of Shimron – scored a century for Guyana in that encounter. I had the privilege of being at the crease with him and shared a 70 run stand.
But to the point, we all knew Barath would go on to play test cricket and he did. He even scored a test century on debut Down Under against Australia.
Fast forward to 2020, and as reported in the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, this year marks “six years since Adrian Barath decided to take a one-year sabbatical from cricket, never to return. There has been constant speculation on the reason such a talented player quit at the age of 24. Several stakeholders recently weighed in on his mysterious exit in 2014 with their various theories.”
It was said that a dressing room drama, pro sports pressure and miss managing the now 30-year old’s injury were pivotal reasons for him walking away from the sport.
That’s unfortunate considering what he had to offer West Indies cricket and I wondered whether Cricket West Indies (CWI) could have done more to ensure that Barath fulfilled his divine calling on the cricket field. Incidentally, he turned away from the sport to serve God.
Barath’s exit from the sport caused me to ponder on a few other gifted players from that 2008 batch who for one reason or the other didn’t go on.
Here are a few names to ask about if there would ever be a Commission of Inquiry into lost talents from the 2008 regional Under – 19 tournament.
Jamaican Andre Creary who dominated regional youth cricket and played for the West Indies in 2008 and 2010 ICC Under 19 World Cup is currently no way around West Indies cricket. It was rumoured that injury stymied his progression. But what did CWI do about it?
There’s also a missing person’s report for Anguillan Chesney Hughes who turned out for Leeward Islands. He first made his mark as a 15-year-old for Anguilla in the Stanford Twenty20 competition in 2006.
He forged a career beyond his Under-19 days but for Derbyshire in the UK. He made his debut in 2009, scoring a gutsy 41 against Middlesex, an attack including the likes of Steven Finn at Lords.
He had a few appearances for the Leewards, the last in 2018, but how on earth did CWI allow him to fall through the cracks?
Similarly, Kelbert Walters (fast bowler from Anguilla), Dalton Polius (all-rounder from Windward), and Jeetendra Sookdeo (opening batsman from Guyana) are just a few other players from that 2008 tournament who were surprisingly not taken care of.
