By Tony McWatt
Cricket West Indies’ (CWI) 2023 Regional 4Day Championships have now concluded.
The Guyana Harpy Eagles registered yet another title win in the tournament’s history, but apart from the final day drama there was nothing much to shout about in terms of outstanding individual performances with either bat or ball.
Alick Athanaze of the Windward Islands Volcanoes and Trinidad & Tobago’s Darren Bravo emerged as the tournament’s highest run scorers. Among the bowlers, two off-spinners; Leeward Islands Hurricanes’ Rakheem Cornwall and the Harpy Eagles’ Kevin Sinclair, were the top performers.
Kevin Sinclair came close to acquiring national hero status with a magnificent six-wicket haul which destroyed the Leeward Islands Hurricanes batting and handed the Harpy Eagles a superb 17-run win on an eventful last day of the tournament’s fifth and final round.
The off-spinner bagged a career best 6-33 from 16.5 overs and was well supported by veteran left-arm spinner Veerasammy Permaul, with 3-44 from 15 overs, as the Guyanese performed a bowling miracle to dismiss the Hurricanes for 125 to win the match and claim the Headley-Weekes Trophy.
Guyana’s dramatic come-from-behind victory staved off the Volcanoes’ robust bid for their maiden championship title. The Volcanoes had earlier defeated the Barbados Pride and would have been hoping for the Hurricanes to prevail over Guyana. Had they done so, the Volcanoes would have lifted their first ever 4-Day title.
The Volcanoes can, however, at least draw comfort from the fact that their captain and middle-order batsman, Athanaze, emerged as the tournament’s top run scorer.
Athanaze amassed an impressive 647 runs from his 10-tournament innings. His nearest rival was Trinidad & Tobago Red Force captain Darren Bravo, some distance behind with 446 runs scored from his 10 appearances.
Harpy Eagles captain Leon Johnson, who had announced his intended retirement from international cricket just after the tournament’s third round of matches had concluded, had the satisfaction of scoring the third highest runs with 388 runs from his 10 innings.
In addition to being the tournament’s highest run scorer, Athanaze also bagged the majority of the remaining batting honours. His two centuries helped him claim the most hundreds award, as did his four fifties for that of the most half-centuries. His 64.70 average was the best among all batsmen and he also took the honours for striking the most boundaries, a whopping 79 in total.
Athanaze’s outstanding 2023 Regional Championship batting must now certainly have reinforced his chances of making his Test debut for the West Indies against the touring Indians this coming July. Although he was included in the squad for the West Indies’ recent two-Test tour to South Africa, he did not feature in either of the matches.
Having ended the Championships as its second-highest run scorer, and regarded as still one of the Caribbean’s best players of spin, the veteran Darren Bravo would also now be harbouring legitimate hopes of a Test recall against the touring Indians. Their bowling attack has of late been almost as equally dependent on spin, if not more so, as on pace.
Bravo might arguably fare much better against the Indian spinners than any of the other current West Indies Test middle-order contenders; Raymon Reifer, Nkrumah Bonner, Jermaine Blackwood, Kyle Mayers or Roston Chase, all of whom have repeatedly demonstrated their respective inadequacies against top-class spin bowling.
Kavem Hodge, whose 387 runs placed him fourth among the top run scorers is another who will be hoping to have caught the selectors’ attention. Hodge has been a consistent tournament performer over the years, without having been overly outstanding. Now already past the age of thirty, his time may have come and gone. Having also taken 49 first class wickets to date with his left-arm spin he can, however, be considered as a batting all-rounder.
Hodge’s chances for a West Indies Test call-up anytime in the foreseeable future would arguably be much better served if his bowling was of the right-arm rather than left-arm variety. With Guyana’s Gudakesh Motie having established himself as the West Indies’ preferred left-arm spinner, it would be most unlikely that the selectors would now be seeking to include another player of that same variety.
Right-handed off-spin is, however, still very much a high-demand commodity for the West Indies team, given Roston Chase’s continued failure to establish himself in that role. Rakheem Cornwall’s emergence as the tournament’s leading wicket-taker would, therefore, certainly have received the selectors’ attention.
Cornwall’s 35 wickets were a fair distance ahead of his nearest rival, Guyana’s veteran left-arm spinner Veerasammy Permaul who ended with 28 scalps. Cornwall also took the honours for the bowler with the most five-wicket hauls, with as many as four fivefors in his five matches played.
Sinclair’s match-winning figures of 6-33 against the Leewards, was the best by any bowler in the tournament. Sinclair finished sixth among the top wicket-takers with 18 scalps from his five matches. With 285 runs scored from his ten innings batted, Sinclair was also ninth in the standings for the highest run-scorers which when combined with his outstanding, overly agile, fielding must surely have also caught the selectors’ attention.
As a fielder, Sinclair couldn’t be any more different when compared to Cornwall, who from all appearances has seemingly done very little, if anything at all, to address his inescapably obvious fitness issues. Whereas Cornwall invariably spends most of any match permanently stationed at slip as a result of his very restricted mobility, Sinclair has proven himself to be adept in virtually any and every fielding position.
When faced with the decision of choosing between Cornwall and Sinclair, the selectors’ best bet would have to be the latter.
Morquino Mindley, who took 19 wickets, the young Barbadian quickie Jair McAllister, as well as the Guyanese duo of Ronsford Beaton and Nial Smith all with 18 scalps apiece, were the seamers who finished among the tournament’s leading wicket-takers. Beaton’s inclusion among the lot was, however, blemished by a most unwelcomed reoccurrence of the illegal action issues that have constantly plagued his career to date. Where he goes from here is anybody’s guess.
As highlighted, there were just a handful of outstanding performances with either bat or ball from this year’s now done and dusted Regional 4-Day Championships. Except for the emerging youthful Alick Athanaze, Kevin St Clair as well as Jair McCalister, there was not much in terms of future talent for West Indies’ selectors, fans and followers to become overly excited about.
Didn’t someone say that there’s an abundance of available talent in West Indies cricket? If so, the owners of such talent must now surely be operating on “Caribbean time,” in terms of making their presence felt!
About The Writer:
Guyana-born, Tony McWatt is the Publisher of both the WI Wickets and Wickets/monthly online cricket magazines that are respectively targeted toward 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.
