By Tony McWatt
The West Indies have commenced their three-match ODI Tour of Holland. The Caribbean white-ball cricketers are engaging their Dutch hosts in three One day Internationals that started Tuesday morning, and continue June 2 and 4. These are matches that will have direct points bearing on both teams’ qualification chances for next year’s India-hosted ICC 2023 World Cup. As such the attention of most of the West Indies team’s fans and followers will rightfully be on the unfolding matches in Holland, all three of which are being played at Amsterdam’s VRA Cricket Ground.
The West Indies selectors will naturally also be keenly observing the performances of their chosen players during the Holland Series, particularly in regard to the eventual composition of the fifteen-member final squad for next year’s ICC ODI World Cup. While doing so they should, however, be just as keenly observing the June 1-4 fifth and Final Round of the 2022 West Indies Regional 4 Day Championships. As a means of determining their choices for the Test squad to face Bangladesh in the forthcoming Series.
The West Indies will engage Bangladesh in a two Tests Series, the first of which will be played at Antigua’s Sir Vivian Richards Stadium from June 16 – 20. The Series’ Second Test will be held in St Lucia’s Darren Sammy Cricket Ground from June 24 – 28.
In terms of the West Indies squad for the two Tests Series, there are some positions now considered by many to be still up for grabs. First and foremost of which would be the choice of the opening batsman partner for skipper Kraigg Brathwaite at the top of the West Indies batting order. The incumbent John Campbell, who was recalled for the recent three-Tests Series against England, did little to effectively silence the voices of his numerous detractors.
Campbell’s three matches against a somewhat depleted England bowling attack, bereft as it was of their front-line seamers Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Joffra Archer, yielded a paltry 112 runs scored from six innings batted at a miserly 22.40 average and with a highest score of 35. His overall Test statistics aren’t that much better – 752 runs scored from 36 innings at an average of 23.50, within 18 matches played. To date, he’s still also yet to score a Test century and has only two half-centuries to his name.
Campbell’s poor returns have reopened the selectors’ door for the identification of a far more reliable opening batting partner for Brathwaite. And, in the two rounds that have been completed since the May 18 resumption of the Regional Four Day Championships, at least two individuals have identified themselves as suitable contenders to be chosen as Campbell’s replacement.
Kieran Powell, the Nevis-born Leeward islands opening batsman, was among the first to register his claims. Powell had impressive scores of 139 and 82 in the Leeward’s Third Round match against the Trinidad & Tobago Red Force with its very strong bowling attack that included West Indies Test pacers Shannon Gabriel and Jayden Seales. He was, however, far less successful in his Fourth Round crease appearances managing scores of only 19 and 18 for the Hurricanes in its encounter with the Windward’s Volcanoes. In fairness to Powell, it should be noted that his first-innings dismissal was unfortunately the result of a run-out.
Powell has also already been given his fair share of Test chances. In the 44 Tests he has played to date for the West Indies he’s scored only 2113 runs at an average of 25.76. Powel’s Test runs have included three centuries and seven half-centuries.
While Powell was faltering somewhat in further advancing his Test squad selection claims, Guyana Harpy Eagles Tagenarine Chanderpaul was effectively using his bat as a sledgehammer on the selectors’ door. As the son of the legendary former West Indies Test batsman, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, the recently turned 26-years-old Tagenarine (born May 17, 1996) has to date scored 414 runs in this year’s 2022 Regional Championships at a supreme average of 82.80. The four innings he’s batted since the Championships’ May 18 resumption have yielded scores of 140*, 23* and 184. Undoubtedly highly impressive returns that would have grabbed the selectors’ attentions by their respective necks.
Despite Chanderpaul’s demonstrated consistency and reliability, the Selectors may now still have their doubts about his suitability as Brathwaite’s Test opening batting partner. The prevailing issue is Chanderpaul’s tendency to face massive amounts of balls in compiling his runs. His 140 not out against Barbados required 434 balls faced. Similarly, the 184 scored against Jamaica was only slightly faster at 423 balls faced.
Chanderpaul’s Championships runs to date have come at a relatively pedestrian scoring rate of 40.42. Brathwaite himself is no Speedy Gonsalves with the bat either. His 475 runs aggregate as the 2022 Championships’ leading run-scorer to date having been produced at the only marginally better rate of 51.91.
The selectors may, therefore, be understandably hesitant in their willingness to have both of the West Indies Test openers as batsmen who have proven themselves to be as pedestrian as both Brathwaite and Chanderpaul. In the latter’s defence, however, he did score a swashbuckling 23 not out, that included four consecutive boundaries, to lead the Harpy Eagles to an eventual exciting five-wicket Third Round win against the Barbados Pride, the tournament’s defending champions.
Unfortunately for Chanderpaul, as aggressive as it was, that 23* not out was made with him having appeared at number seven in the Harpy Eagles’ batting order. Not in his customary opening position at the top of the order. His demotion in the batting order was by itself a profound statement by the Harpy Eagles’ team management on the degree of their confidence in his abilities to score as quickly as required while fulfilling the role of an opening batsman.
With only the fifth and final round of matches in this year’s tournament left to be played, the Guyana Harpy Eagles’ chances of dethroning the defending champions Barbados Pride would now appear to be a virtual impossibility. With four rounds of matches having been completed, the Harpy Eagles had accumulated 51.2 points to lie third behind the second-placed Leeward Islands Hurricanes on 65.4 and even further adrift of the Barbados Pride as leaders with 67.0 to their name.
The Harpy Eagle’s remaining match against the Trinidad & Tobago Red Force will, therefore, by all accounts be of no real meaningful significance in terms of determining the Championships’ eventual winner. It will, however, offer Tagenarine Chanderpaul a most wonderful, final opportunity, to further reinforce his claims to the selectors as the very best choice to partner Kraigg Brathwaite in opening the West Indies’ batting for the forthcoming Tests against Bangladesh.
With their championship title hopes now effectively squashed the Harpy Eagles’ team management’s encouraging message to Chanderpaul should be for him to approach his remaining Championship innings with the intention of playing freely to the very best of his abilities. There’s now no longer any pressing need for him to shoulder the responsibility for the innings’ stability by being its immovable rock. Instead, he should be given full licence to play all the strokes, he undoubtedly has in his armoury as was evidenced by his second innings victory achieving 20 balls 23 not out against the Pride.
Allow the youngster the full opportunity to effectively silence all those who still remain as his critics. He’s proven his tenacity and reliability, let him now also establish his free-scoring credibility.
Go Tage Go!
About the writer: Guyana-born, Toronto-based, Tony McWatt is the Publisher of both the WI Wickets and Wickets monthly online cricket magazines that are respectively targeted towards Caribbean and Canadian readers. He is also the only son of the former Guyana and West Indies wicket-keeper batsman the late Clifford “Baby Boy” McWatt.
