WITH the present debate circulating around Guyana, with regard to the axing of both Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan from the West Indies team to face Pakistan in the first two limited-overs internationals, Guyana Chronicle stumbled across a letter written by the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport  Dr Frank Anthony to the West Indies Cricket Board’s chairman of selectors Clyde Butts. Below is a full transcript of the letter:
ON SELECTION CRITERIA AND RELATED ISSUES
Dear Chairman of Selectors,
CONFIDENT that both of us are seized with the commitment to the most positive development of West Indies cricket, I write to seek some fundamental clarifications from you on behalf of my Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport and indeed the entire sporting and cricketing public of Guyana.
During the past week beginning with the malicious, mischievous and unfounded information relating to West Indies cricketer Ramnaresh Sarwan being published on an Internet Blog, many serious, even provocative issues about the selection of a current West Indian team have given widespread coverage in the regional media.
Reasons advanced by yourself and your CEO Dr Ernest Hilaire with respect to the selection and/or omission of certain players have been carefully noted. I have grappled – unsuccessfully – with your stated rationale for omitting from the ODI squad to face Pakistan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan, especially.
The recent records of Sarwan, particularly, confound all your reasons for identifying “the core of players who (we) will build the team around”; by dropping him. By standards of both fitness and statistics both Sarwan and Chanderpaul should have retained their ODI places. This is not only my ‘Opinion’ but conclusions built on the facts of performance.
Reports have reached my Ministry about the method used by your Committee to “invite” Shivnarine Chanderpaul to retire from Limited overs cricket; about earlier tensions between the players and Coach Ottis Gibson; about non-cricket allegations against Sarwan and about an alleged preference for the under-performing Darren Sammy.
Whilst I cannot deem all those reports issued as valid, they have certainly fuelled the PERCEPTION AND SUSPICION (in Guyana at least) that just purely professional selection criteria were not at play for your just concluded decisions.
AGAINST THAT BACKGROUND THEREFORE, I ask of you, just as a courtesy to this Ministry, to outline your selection criteria for the players just omitted from the West Indies Squad. It would also be useful, I respectfully submit, if you would offer a comment from your Board’s perspective, on whether the Players just omitted have any future chances of being included in a West Indies team based on recent reputation and current form.
Thanks for your consideration, as I await confidently, the courtesy of an informative response,
Yours in Cricket
Hon. Dr Frank Anthony, M.P.,
Minister
CTFRoberts