Tony Becca FROM THE BOUNDARYTHE SECOND Test between the West Indies and Australia enters its third day today at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua and whatever is the score at the start of the day's play, cricket fans around the region are looking forward to a good contest and hoping their team will come out on top.
Looking at the team, however, and although Australia are not as good, as invincible as they were, the West Indies will be lucky, very lucky, if they win or draw the Test match.
One reason is that the West Indies batting is weak, or at best unpredictable.
Another reason, however, is the selectors.
With the panel including three Test cricketers of the past - two of them numbered among the greats of the game, the coach, and the captain, be it Chris Gayle and/or Ramnaresh Sarwan, the selectors should know what they are doing.
Based on their selections, however, they do not seem to know what they are doing. In fact, they appear to be simply rolling the dice.
While it is true that they do not have a lot from which to select, it is difficult to understand, once again, their treatment of spin bowlers, their idea of a balanced team and the basis by which the West Indies team is selected.
Is the team, for example, selected on performance and, if so, is it like golf where the lower the score, the better the performance?
left-arm spinner dropped
After talking so much, so glowingly, about Sulieman Benn, after singing his praise and selecting him for the first Test against Sri Lanka recently, the selectors dropped the left-arm spinner for the second Test. After talking so much, so glowingly, about Amit Jaggernauth, after singing his praise and surprisingly selecting him over Benn for the first Test against Australia, the selectors dropped him for the second Test.
In fact, what is really strange is that Benn was selected first, was kept in the squad after he was dropped and is still in the squad while Jaggernauth, who was selected second and instead of Benn, is now at home twiddling his thumbs.
When one remembers the number of fast bowlers who failed in their first Test match and were given many chances to prove themselves, when one remembers the many spin bowlers who have been given one opportunity to prove themselves, or one opportunity once every now and again, it is obvious, as far as the selectors are concerned, that spin bowling in the West Indies is a waste of time.
Once again, that is the reason why West Indies spin bowlers do not or cannot develop their skills - why, when it comes to mesmerising skills, they are so ordinary and why West Indies batsmen are easy pickings for the good ones around the world.
Instead of selecting a spin bowler, instead of fielding an attack of three fast bowlers in Jerome Taylor, Fidel Edwards and Daren Powell, one spin bowler, and one all-rounder in medium-pacer Dwayne Bravo, the selectors, the blinkered selectors, have, for this Test match - and as they have done before, selected an attack of three fast bowlers, and with Darren Sammy, generously called an all-rounder, two medium-pacers.
do not have a pretender
In other words, in a world where every other team has at least one spin bowler, the West Indies are so great, and have been so successful, that they do not even have a pretender - someone who they can call on should the pitch deteriorate to the extent that it is crying out for a spin bowler, not to mention someone to break the monotony of the same thing over after over on a good pitch.
The selection of Xavier Marshall, however, takes the cake.
parchment failed to shine
Marshall is good enough to make some runs, but without mentioning Brendon Nash who scored 422 runs with two centuries at an average of 46.88 in the regional tournament, it is strange, really strange, that he is in and Brenton Parchment is out.
Parchment, in my opinion, did not do enough to get into a Test team, and with an average of 13.75 in his two matches, he failed to perform. The point, however, is that he played in one Test in South Africa and was dropped, that he played in the first Test against Australia and has been dropped, and that does not make sense.
In other words, if Parchment was good enough to play Test cricket, he should have been good enough to play two or three matches in a row, and especially so this time around when Gayle was still unable to return to the team, particularly so that his replacement was Marshall.
After coming into the West Indies team before he had played for Jamaica, Marshall played two Test matches for an average of 4.25, his record for Jamaica has been disappointing, with not even one century, his first-class average is 25.00.
His record in the regional tournament this season shows a top score of 69 and an average of 34.25, he was not selected by the Jamaica selectors for Jamaica's last match this season and his scores for the Jamaica Select X1 against Australia were 30 and 31.
On top of that, and with four players - Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Sarwan and Bravo - not included, Marshall was not even in the 17-man squad called to the West Indies camp in preparation for the current series and he was not in the 14-man squad called up for the first Test match.
Apart from the fact that I read Marshall was called up as cover for a batsman, I was told by the manager of the West Indies team on the eve of the first Test match that Marshall was called in as standby in case a batsman was injured and could not play.
marshall put on standby
I was told by one of the selectors on the last day of the first Test match when the squad for the second Test was released that Marshall was not in the squad but was on standby in case one of the batsmen could not play.
Parchment, like Benn and Jaggernauth and many before them, must be wondering just what is happening to him.
In case he really does not know, Parchment's career is in the hands of a set of selectors with a pair of dice in their hands.
Maybe, like an old Jamaican saying, apart from rolling the dice, apart from hoping and apart from praying, the West Indies selectors are saying, in selecting the West Indies team, guess me this riddle and perhaps not.
