Editorial: The Clyde Butts selection panel should be sacked

[BallOil]

The Clyde Butts selection panel should be sacked By Stabroek news

Dear Editor,

I am very angry about the present state of West Indies cricket, and more so the performance of the team in the World Cup. To begin with I would like to recommend that the entire Clyde Butts selection panel be sacked. In the first place, how can the selectors pick two left-arm spinners and no specialist off-spinner and leg-spinner? Knowing the conditions in the sub-continent, they had no vision and foresight. All the big teams have three or more specialist spinners in their line-ups: India – Harbhajan, Chawla, Ashwin and Yuvraj; Pakistan – Afridi, Ajmal, Hafeez and Rehman; England – Swann, Yardy, Tredwell; Sri-Lanka – Murali, Mendes, Herath; and even South Africa has Tahir, Botha and Peterson. Miller should not have been selected; instead Bishoo and Ryan Austin should have been selected in the original squad. Selectors should select teams to suit the conditions they will play under. When you have selectors of the ilk of Butts, Browne and Haynes who could not command a place in the West Indies team during their playing days, little wonder that West Indies cricket is where it is today – in the doldrums.

It is clear the days of Gayle, Sarwan, Chanderpaul, Sammy, Pollard, Benn and Miller are over (I am talking here Tests and 50 overs cricket). As far as I am concerned, Gayle and Pollard don’t care a hang about West Indies cricket, they only are playing for the money. Sarwan and Chanderpaul should retire. Here again, they should never have been selected for the World Cup. They are no longer limited overs cricketers. Sammy should do the honourable thing and resign the captaincy; he is a very limited cricketer amd should not even have been in the West Indies team, likewise Miller. As for Benn, besides being a reasonable left-arm spinner, he is hopeless in all other aspects as a cricketer, be it, batting, fielding, discipline or commitment.

After the humiliation and pain West Indies fans had to suffer during the World Cup, now is the time for a complete change and a fresh start, with a selection panel comprising Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and Michael Holding or Joel Garner.

The team that should be selected for the upcoming Pakistan and India series is as follows:

i) A Barath

ii) L Simmons

iii) D Ganga (Captain)

iv) Dwayne Bravo (Vice Captain)

v) Darren Bravo

vi) M Samuels

vii) B Nash

viii) D Ramdin

ix) D Bishoo

x) F Edwards

xi) J Taylor

xii) K Roach

xiii) A Russel

xiv) V Permaul

xv) R. Austin

xvi) D Smith

My choice for the captaincy is based on the fact that Darren Ganga is no doubt the best captain in the West Indies at present and has been scoring runs consistently over the past two years. He cannot do worse than Sammy. Marlon Samuels and Lendl Simmons deserve another chance. I think they have learnt their lessons and will be hungry for success. I know the Veerasammy Permaul selection will raise many eyebrows, but those of us who know Bishoo and Permaul can attest to the fact that we knew it was only a matter of time before Permaul made the West Indies team before Bishoo. However, as fate would have it, Permaul went to the High Performance Centre and did not play in the Regional 20/20 tournament and the subsequent IPL Champions League in South Africa; Bishoo played and the rest is now history. For the Coziers, Bishops and all the other television commentators who are now singing the praises of Bishoo, wait until you see Permaul. Besides being an excellent left-arm spinner, he is also an outstanding fielder and more than a capable batsman.

I can gurarantee he will be a great asset to the West Indies team. The reason why I chose Ryan Austin is because for too long, we never got the balance of our attack right, and with Austin, Bishoo and Permaul we will have all the options covered (off-spin, leg-spin and left-arm spin). With a fit Jerome Taylor, Fidel Edwards, Kemar Roach and the exciting Andre Russel, we will have a world-class bowling attack.

Editor, I am pretty confident if we select this team, we will be well on our way to being the number one cricket team in the world in the not too distant future.

what you guys think?

[Googley]

I clearly understands why the poster is emotional. most WI fans are angry over the selection and performance of the players.

Yes, I agree with most of the changes but we need to be careful and not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

First, the entire board needs to be discarded and reassembled with each region having a representative to make up the new board.

Yes, get rid of the current selectors. They are ass kissers and not thinkers.

Fire the coach. With a team in so much "trouble" he is out of his league!

Concentrate on rebuilding the team with a few seniors to lead and a bunch of youngsters. We need someone with discipline to take over the captaincy!

lets try to repeat the Sobers- Kanhai - Lloyd transitions.

RBK brought discipline and some youngsters in..Lloyd continue building on that platform. we know the results.

Lets do the same....

Let Ronnie/Bravo lead this team. Tiger still has a few good years left.
If Gayle is serious about his cricket and willing to demonstrate discipline, keep him

Pullard - should be history until he can demonstrate he can bat in the long form of the game.
Sammy - history
Miller - history
Thomas - dropped until he can produce runs.
Devon Smith - I would keep him around and make sure he gets better...or he is history
Rampaul - not consistent enough

etc

[BallOil]

West Indies cricket needs reform from head to tail! Chopping and changing players, save the coach, Capp, etc will not fix it. Fish rotten from the head first! Why?

Until there is accountability, transparency, etc in WI cricket..Windians will continue whine. If the people think its time for change, then take back the damn cricket and put it in capable hands.

[mapoui]

West Indies cricket needs reform from head to tail! Chopping and changing players, save the coach, Capp, etc will not fix it. Fish rotten from the head first! Why?

Until there is accountability, transparency, etc in WI cricket..Windians will continue whine. If the people think its time for change, then take back the damn cricket and put it in capable hands.

exactly!

but only the ordinary people of the westindies are capable of bringing about such change. it is not in the interest of the elites who run the westindies on a daily basis to bring about any such change

[BallOil]

West Indies cricket needs reform from head to tail! Chopping and changing players, save the coach, Capp, etc will not fix it. Fish rotten from the head first! Why?

Until there is accountability, transparency, etc in WI cricket..Windians will continue whine. If the people think its time for change, then take back the damn cricket and put it in capable hands.

exactly!

but only the ordinary people of the westindies are capable of bringing about such change. it is not in the interest of the elites who run the westindies on a daily basis to bring about any such change

Mapoui,

The question is, are the ordinary people want change? Are the people capable of pulling this off?

[mapoui]

right! it needs a lil explanation...at least the way I see it.

I dont know exactly what the westindian people think about anyissue at all. but I assume to a man they want to see a championship westindies cricket team

I stated what I see the equation to be according to the way things go in the westindies, based on principles of social analysis to which I subscribe. there is no doubt in my mind at about the accuracy of the equation I stated:

westindies cricket is regarded as a threat to their social interest by the westindian blac and brown elites. they have as a result, worked to destablise the game in the region, if not to kill it all entirely to hobble it in such a was as it will never rise again to its former prominence and unifying social role in the westindies.

as such the hobbl;ing of westindies cricket is an attack on the ordianry westindian people, depriving them of their one great and world class soucre of pride and identity, and rendering them seperate and weaker units, all the better to acceot in docility their domination at the hands of an elite that is just a brown and blac carbon copy of the ole 'masser and the white plantation society he once led in the region.

asuch as their class domination and wealth rest on these old usages in which the metrople is the centere of all and they have pledged subservience to it, here is little chance....

[mapoui]

...of a westindian nationalist development along the lines of canada, or New Zeland or Oz for us. the nature of our independence is different, subservient, dependent on the old way, never taking control and striking out on our own in socialism or in capitalism, in which all success is welcome.

in such a state we would not be woking to destroy our cricket but to develop it and profit by as the Oz and others have done. we would have a leadership class that would not be afriad of the unity such success would bring but would spin it, indeed teach it, as their achievement and a significant pillar in the basis of their right to dominate and run the society.

so unlike the canadians, the Oz, Kiwi etc we have extruded an elite that is absolutely without manhood, who would not have sought independence at all were it not for a few determined voices in the mix of the times that shamed them all into going forward..once such being that of Eric Williams, to his undying credit.

the westindian elite is such a disgusting, supine, ass-liking, determindely boyish thing in relationship with our former lords and masters and to the white skin, that if you saw it in its true light you would puke.

but that is why they have brought westindian cricket to this pass. it is a deliberate thing, a consciously achieved deconstruction for supine purposes. it is the political equivalent to the cricket tactic of building down the side to suit an incompetent captain..Sammy.

only the westindian people, in the recognition of their full and crucial interest in the equation, as opposed to the ineterest of the westindian elite, has the collective power in politcal action, to change the situation. no one else will move becuse it is us aginst them. they have the official power and are actring. w

[mapoui]

the people have the cocial power, which is the basic power for there is no more basic law than the people in collective action. but are the people conscious and ready for such action in the westindies relative to their needs in the generally ill society imposed on them?

thats the question!

by rights they will not rise for cricket alone. cricket is just one important cultural factor that needs address for it is has been made critically ill.

westindian society as a whole must be reformed, reorganised, and only the people in collective action can acomplish that. and when they do cricket also can be reformed from the ground up