(CMC) – Lead selector Desmond Haynes said the selection panel plans to provide a list of players to Cricket West Indies that they could start grooming for future leadership roles in the West Indies team.
Haynes said they were looking to create a leadership group for the future, and players such as current “A” Team captain Joshua Da Silva, Windward Islands Volcanoes captain Alick Athanaze, and white-ball specialist Brandon King were high on the list.
“What we are trying to do is to encourage and get a group of players who we can have that can play leadership roles,” he said.
“We have got our eye on someone like Brandon King, Alick Athanaze, who has captained the Windward Islands this year, and we were very impressed with him leadership. Also, it did not affect his batting, which we thought was very important,” Haynes said.
“We had to be consistent as well. We have Joshua Da Silva, who captained the ‘A’ Team against Bangladesh last year, and instead of chopping and changing, we thought we gave him one season, why not give him another?
“He also captained in the Headley-Weekes tournament, and we just thought that we will be consistent and allow Joshua to captain the ‘A’ Team at this time.”
Haynes added: “Going forward, what we plan to do is to make some recommendations to Cricket West Indies where they will look at a list of players that we can start grooming for leadership.
“I think Joshua would be one of them, you’ve got Alick Athanaze, Brandon King, and then we have Shai Hope, who is captaining now in the 50-over, and there would be plenty more that we would be looking at in the future.”
West Indies “A” arrived last Thursday in Bangladesh to play a series of three “Tests” under Da Silva in Sylhet. The squad included King and Athanaze.
The series is the reciprocal visit for the Bangladesh “A” Tour of the Caribbean last August, when the teams drew both a series of two “Tests”, and three One-day, 50 overs-a-side matches.
