Tony Becca, Contributor

THE SELECTION of players for a team in a game like cricket is difficult, and there can be no question about that - especially so with all the insularity around and with every country expecting their players to be in the team.

That, however, cannot excuse the madness of the selectors who, in selecting a squad for training, a squad from which the team to represent the West Indies against the mighty Australia will be selected, have come up with a squad that is totally unacceptable and one which, in a nutshell, is an embarrassment to West Indies cricket.

The West Indies selectors have always defended their right to select who they wish to select. They have always defended their right to do so without interference even from the board members who are elected to run the affairs of West Indies cricket and who select them to do a job.

The West Indies selectors, many of them, and especially so over the past 15 or 20 years, have always believed that they have a right to tell, to suggest, as they often say that is what it is, to the territorial selectors who they should select.

I once asked a West Indies selector about 20 years ago who or what gave him the right to go into a country, to go on local television and to talk about the failure of the local selectors to select a player who, in his opinion, was bursting with talent.

I also asked him why does he believe that he who lives miles and miles away and who has seen the player only once or twice knows more about the player, who is not a performer and who does not train and practice to any extent, than those who see him almost every day and in action on Saturdays and Sundays.

Many blunders

Over the years, and particularly so in the past 20 years or so, the West Indies selectors have made many blunders.

The selection of the squad for the series against Australia, however, takes the cake - and although they both deserve a place in the squad of 17, which by the way does not include Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo, it has nothing to do with the non-inclusion of batsman Brendan Nash and left-arm spinner Nikita Miller.

Although both are considered by many to be lacking in the skills necessary to make them a success at the Test level, regardless of what the West Indies selectors may believe, the regional tournament is supposed to be the stage on which all West Indian cricketers good enough to represent their respective territory are tested.

It is supposed to be the stage from which the West Indies squad and then the West Indies team is selected and even though neither of them really shook the world, based on their performances Miller and Nash, in the interest of justice, in an attempt to make the board's tournament seem meaningful, in a bid to motivate others who are dreaming that one day, based on performance, they will wear the maroon cap, should have been included in the West Indies squad.

For me, however, the question which the selectors should really answer is this: what have Kieron Pollard and Williams Perkins done to be even considered for the squad?

At 21 years old - less one day, Pollard's first-class average after 13 matches is 34.33 - and that is due to his amazing entrance when he scored 126 in his debut match against Barbados last year, his 69 off 31 deliveries in his second match against Guyana and 117 with six sixes off 87 deliveries against the Leeward Islands in his third match.

He has done nothing

Since then he has done nothing. He has not scored another century, his batting average this season has been a mere 27.31 and the way he batted at Sabina Park while falling for five and 20 in the Carib Beer Challenge Trophy match recently was an embarrassment.

At 21, Perkins first-class average after five matches is 24.30 - and that was helped by this year's average of 29.25 which saw the left-hander finishing in eighth position on the Trinidad and Tobago list and way down the ladder at number 31 on the tournament's overall performance list.

One never knows, Pollard and Perkins may one day become stars in West Indies cricket. Right now, however, neither one, regardless of the reason, should have been invited to the squad - unless, of course, the selectors believe they have a right to select who they wish to select, unless West Indies cricket is weak that they are grabbing at straws and unless the selectors really believe that if they continue to put their hands in the bag one day they will come up trumps.