Vin­ode Mam­chan

West In­dies as­sis­tant coach and for­mer coach of the Trinidad and To­ba­go crick­et team David Williams has been made a se­nior na­tion­al se­lec­tor. This de­ci­sion was made by the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) ex­ec­u­tive two weeks ago. The 48-year-old Williams re­places for­mer T&T and West In­dies off-spin­ner Rangy Nanan. Pres­i­dent of the TTCB, Az­im Bas­sarath ex­plained yes­ter­day the de­ci­sion re­sult­ed from the res­ig­na­tion of Rangy Nanan who no longer had time to do the job. "The TTCB has a pol­i­cy which re­quires se­lec­tors to spend time at match­es. They are now man­dat­ed to vis­it the na­tion­al league games and the cham­pi­onship match­es in search of tal­ent and this would have been dif­fi­cult for Rangy. As a re­sult we de­cid­ed to go with David Williams be­cause of his wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence. He was a na­tion­al se­lec­tor about ten years ago and he is well equipped to make a good con­tri­bu­tion."

Bas­sarath not­ed Williams has been around the team as coach and knows the strengths and weak­ness­es of the play­ers. "Al­though he is as­sis­tant man­ag­er of the West In­dies team, he was with the team dur­ing the re­gion­al T20 this year and al­so with the boys at the Cham­pi­ons League in In­dia. The man­age­ment re­port­ed that he played a big part in the team's suc­cess and we want­ed him in­volved at an even greater lev­el." Williams played 11 Tests for the West In­dies av­er­ag­ing 13.44, with a high­est score of 65 against Eng­land in 1998 which helped them to a three-wick­et win in Trinidad.