IT would appear that the WICB and its selectors are determined to keep Adrian Barath out of the West Indies team until they have finally run out of options. Barath, who suffered an injury before the World Cup even began and has been in training and playing for weeks, is now being sent to the Sagicor Training Centre presumably to keep working. This is, of course, utter nonsense as the same thing was done to him last year only for the selectors to select D. Richards who then proved to be a failure. To have one of the most talented young batsmen sitting on the sidelines while the team is struggling is quite absurd and very unfair to the young man.
When we combine this with the furore over Gayle, the non-selection of Chanderpaul and the absence of Taylor, this further depletes a team that has as its captain a very average cricketer. As usual the media is remarkably silent over the treatment meted out to Barath. Meanwhile, every Tom, Dick and Harry is being tried as opening batsman and with the exception of Lendl Simmons, all have been failures. Nor can we expect the TV commentary crew led by the supposed Caribbean legend Tony Cozier to raise this issue as they seem to take a wide detour on issues like this one. With M. Holding out of the commentary team and in England we are left with a rather “wishy washy” crew.