… says WICB to meet with Sulieman Benn
CHAIRMAN of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) selection committee Clyde Butts yesterday welcomed Shivnarine Chanderpaul back into the Regional side, saying the left-handed middle-order batsman knows what is expected of him when he faces the visiting Pakistan team in the first Test match at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence, from tomorrow. “I have confidence in Shiv. He has been around cricket for a long time and he is very professional and I think he will go back in there and play the game how he is supposed to play it. We (all three selectors) spoke to him and we are confident he will go out there and get the job done,” said Butts.
The former West Indies off-spinner was at the time, referring to Chanderpaul’s off-the-field battles with some executive members of the WICB along with coach Ottis Gibson and when quizzed on Chanderpaul gelling back with the team, Butts said that the coach and management team are the ones to handle that.
“Only the management team, especially the coach who will be dealing with him, can say how well Chanderpaul fits into the team as they will be dealing with the team on a daily basis.”
The 36-year-old Chanderpaul who is a veteran of 122 Test matches where he has aggregated 9 063 runs with 22 centuries (highest scores 203* against South Africa) at an average of 48.98, was left out of the limited overs team that lost the five-match series 3-2 to the Pakistanis.
Butts was asked to comment on the exclusion of Barbados’ left-arm orthodox spinner Sulieman Benn, since it was rumoured the lanky spinner was axed from the team for disciplinary reasons.
“Benn has always been a part of our team in the past and he might be aware that he was not included in the one-day squad as well, which is obvious from the reports we had during the World Cup.
“It was not a very good report and we felt that he needed time to recuperate from the World Cup, especially with the situations that occurred there, including his actual behaviour both on and off the field.
“He has been spoken to by both the selectors and the coach who sat with him for a long time during the camp in Barbados and we explained everything to him,” stated Butts.
Only leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo who has been enjoying a remarkable run in the team so far, picking up 15 wickets in his eight limited overs matches to date, has been selected as the specialist spinner for the two Test series, with fast bowlers Kemar Roach, Fidel Edwards and Ravi Rampaul and skipper Darren Sammy expected to do the bulk of the bowling.
“Of course the thought was given with regard to playing two spinners at Providence, knowing the history of the ground, but when we looked at our squad and the combination, we felt that one spinner would be suitable for the match.”
The question of having a spinner, maybe Ryan Austin, who took 42 wickets in the Regional four-day tournament for league champions Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC), or his team mate Kavesh Kantasingh as a back-up to Bishoo, was also considered by Butts and his panel.
This was in relation to Bishoo not being fully recovered from the neck pains he was experiencing two days ago and not wishing to have a recurrence of last year, when the Windies could not field a side on the morning of the Test match against South Africa in Barbados until Guyana’s Brandon Bess was brought down from the High Performance Centre (HPC), Butts said a back-up spinner has been identified.
“Bishoo is feeling better than he was two days ago, but in case he is unable to make his Test debut on Thursday (tomorrow), we have a contingency plan in place, in terms of a standby spinner whose name we will not release as yet, waiting in the wings.”
While some were clamouring for the inclusion of Austin, Kantasingh and even Odean Browne from Jamaica, a fit and trim-looking Bishoo was turning his leg breaks, googlies and sliders in the practice area at the national stadium to his teammates, even knocking back the leg stump of Carlton Baugh.