JOSEPH ‘Reds’ Perreira who became the World’s oldest First-Class Cricket Commentator during the first ‘A’ team Test in St Lucia at the age of 86, provided his views on the naming of the West Indies Captain and Vice-Captain for the Australia 3-Test home series.

At 33, Barbadian Roston Chase has been appointed as Captain while 33-year-old St Vincent born Bajan Jomal Warrican was named Vice-Captain.

Chase played the first of 49 Tests against India in Antigua on July 21, 2016 and after 90 innings has 2,265 runs at an Ave of 26.33 with five tons (2 v India and 2 v Pak) and 11 fifties. He also has 85 wickets with his off-spin.

After scoring 269 runs at an Ave of 17.93 in his last 15 innings Chase was dropped in South Africa in March 2023 and has not a Test match since then.

“`To be very honest, in the end when they came down to finding a West Indies Captain, they had very few options. Initially I think one of the people fancied throughout the Caribbean based on the fact that Daren Sammy was the all- format Coach seemed to very straightforward and simple to have Shai Hope as the all-format Captain,” said Reds.

As it turned out he was not interested in being the Test Captain because he wanted the flexibility to Captain the ‘white-ball’ side and still be able to go off and play T20 Franchise Cricket to ensure his financial future and have the ability to go the ‘Big Bash’ and elsewhere” said Reds who has commentated in 152 Test Matches.

“It was obvious that one of the other candidates…Jason Holder…was not a part of Miles Bascome and Daren Sammy’s plans. They obviously felt they had to look ahead and look past Holder who would have made a pretty good choice with his background, experience and knowledge. He has ability and stature.”

“But it was evident that, as we saw he wasn’t taken to England for the ODI series. So, without Hope, without Holder, they had very few people that they could have named as Captain.”

“They had to look for someone who had the experience and decided on Roston Chase who have played 49 Test matches. He has been in the trenches and has experienced winning and losing many times.”

But he has not played Test cricket in close to two and a half years and that is the big problem,” informed Reds who has covered five ICC World Cups for Radio including the inaugural one in 1975.

But who else they could have gone to?

“I don’t believe it would have been in the best interest of Tevin Imlach to give him the captaincy at this time.

But I do feel that he should have been the Vice-Captain for two reasons…he has done very well for Guyana after taking over from Leon Johnson who has won First-Class six title in eight years for Guyana and he would have been a young man working along with Chase so there could have been an easy transition in about two years when he would have had a few more Tests to his name. Imlach is clearly the best Test keeper in the Region now.” Continued Reds who made his Test debut on Radio in 1971 at Bourda when India toured West Indies.

Reds agreed that Jamal Warrican had a great tour of a Pakistan and out-bowled Gudakash Motie on a dream pitch for any spinner.

“But in naming Warrican as Vice-Captain, if at Kensington and you want to play four fast bowlers because the pitch is favoring pace, you are forced to pick him.”

So right away this could disrupt playing four fast bowlers playing conditions that favors pace since Chase is already the back-up off-spinner.

Chase has gotten the challenge to come back after such a long break to show that is able to produce the form which brought him five Test hundreds. Chase’s demeanor has got to change…by nature is he almost an introvert” added Reds, who resides in St. Lucia.

“If you took a survey the majority of people involved in cricket were not impressed by the process used by CWI to select a Captain.

The Interviews seemed to be not related to cricket but more related to general intelligence.

We have moved away from many things. We have moved away from selectors for the first time since 1928.

Selectors would traditionally watch the First-Class Games and the Captains and recommend to the Board a Captain. The Board may or may not agree, but that is gone now.

Presently there is a group who provides information to the single Selector. I don’t think that group is strong enough.

Having just one Selector is a part of a new system and I believe it’s an overload to have Sammy as Selector in addition to ‘white ball’ and ‘Red ball’ Coach especially with so much cricket played now,” concluded Reds, who covered the 1978 Keery Paker World Series in Australia.