Vin­ode Mam­chan

For­mer West In­dies off-spin­ner Rangy Nanan says the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) con­tin­ues to de-mo­ti­vate play­ers and the lat­est de­ci­sion to take away re­tain­er con­tracts from some se­nior play­ers, is just an­oth­er in­stance of this. The WICB re­leased the names of 14 play­ers who have been giv­en re­tain­er con­tracts this week and sur­pris­ing­ly left out were T&T wick­et­keep­er De­nesh Ramdin, Ja­maican fast bowler Jerome Tay­lor and Guyanese bats­men Ramnaresh Sar­wan and Travis Dowl­in. Nanan de­scribed the de­ci­sion as back­ward and said the WICB se­lec­tors were not think­ing things through.

"I would have thought Sar­wan was in their minds as a fu­ture cap­tain. I would like to see Sar­wan as Test cap­tain and Dwayne Bra­vo, as the One-day cap­tain." Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to Ramdin, Nanan said he has not had the best of times re­cent­ly but he has played 42 Tests. "What are they try­ing to tell him. Do they think by tak­ing him off the re­tain­er, it would mo­ti­vate him to get back on. I think this move would on­ly de-mo­ti­vate him."

Mean­while open­er Adri­an Barath, who earned a re­tain­er con­tract for the first time said it will give him the sta­bil­i­ty to con­cen­trate on his de­vel­op­ment as a crick­eter. Barath said the de­ci­sion was a great ease since it gives him the fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty he needs at this stage of his ca­reer. "Now, I can con­cen­trate on rep­re­sent­ing the West In­dies and do­ing my part to get us back to the top of world crick­et."