Tony Rakhal-Fras­er

Good news and chal­leng­ing times for West In­dies Test crick­et at the end of the year. Hav­ing gone through all of 2026 with­out los­ing a Test se­ries, the first time since 1994, with vic­to­ries against Bangladesh and Sri Lan­ka and a 1-1 draw against Pak­istan, such a record must be con­sid­ered as pos­i­tive, a mea­sure of re­lief, and hope for long-suf­fer­ing West In­di­ans tied by our navel string, and much else, to our crick­et and crick­et­ing he­roes.

Enough, though, for as­pi­ra­tions and mem­o­ries, al­low now the cyn­ic-cum re­al­ist to take over. The vic­to­ries are im­por­tant, but not in­dica­tive of be­ing trans­for­ma­tive of what has been miss­ing from West In­dies crick­et for at least 25 years. Why? With­out seek­ing to den­i­grate the coun­tries over which the WI have tri­umphed, they are not South Africa, Aus­tralia, New Zealand, In­dia and Eng­land, the top teams in the tra­di­tion­al for­mat of the game. In the cir­cum­stances, there­fore, win­ning and not los­ing must be scru­ti­nised and not be a source of feel­ing that we are fi­nal­ly on the road back to where we were as the cham­pi­on crick­et­ing na­tion; ar­guably the great­est of all time.

Let’s en­ter in­to a crit­i­cal analy­sis of our play­ers, their per­for­mances, lead­er­ship, in­clud­ing cap­tain­cy and coach­ing, and even a glance at the ICC struc­ture for Test crick­et and what that por­tends.

Dur­ing the year there have been a few en­cour­ag­ing bat­ting per­for­mances from Greaves, Shai Hope, Ar­mit Jan­goo, Kevem Hodge and, most re­cent­ly, young Kevin Wick­ham, who reg­is­tered two fifty-plus in­nings in the Bangladesh se­ries. Wick­ham’s start is su­pe­ri­or to a few oth­er young bats­men who have not shown the qual­i­ty of bat­ting and, most im­por­tant­ly, the men­tal ca­pac­i­ty to score runs in Test crick­et.

Bran­don King and John Camp­bell have had one or two good per­for­mances, but they have been far too in­con­sis­tent; they are tal­ent­ed stroke play­ers but must learn how to con­struct an in­nings in the most un­for­giv­ing form of crick­et. Skip­per Ros­ton Chase had one out­stand­ing bat­ting per­for­mance, 194 against Sri Lan­ka, but has short­changed the West In­dies; his fig­ures show his bat­ting to have been quite sub­stan­dard in all for­mats.

That rais­es, for this writer, a se­ri­ous ques­tion of his be­ing the cap­tain of the Test XI who is not able to com­mand his place; he lives a charmed life with the se­lec­tors and the ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The ob­vi­ous choice to cap­tain the Test team is Shai Hope as bats­man. How­ev­er, now in his 30s and hav­ing to car­ry the work­load be­hind the stumps, at least in the ODIs and T20s, a per­ma­nent wick­et­keep­er for the Test match­es is need­ed. DaSil­va re­cent­ly muffed his chances to re­turn both in front and be­hind the stumps. He should, though, be giv­en a cou­ple more chances to come good.

Of the bowlers, Jomel War­ri­can, the left-arm spin­ner, did well against Bangladesh in the se­ries to be named Man of the Se­ries for his 16 dis­missals on wick­ets which did not al­low for the amount and be­mus­ing turn gen­er­al­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with those in that part of the crick­et-play­ing world.

The West In­di­an fast bowlers, Shamar and Alzarri Joseph and Jay­den Seales, have had good re­sults over the pe­ri­od of 2026. How­ev­er, the heavy work­load placed on all three, play­ing con­sis­tent­ly in all the for­mats, has re­sult­ed in the loss of a mea­sure of their sharp­ness and wick­et-tak­ing po­ten­tial they have dis­played through their ca­reer. Qual­i­ty re­place­ments who can be ro­tat­ed in­to the sched­ule for the short­er for­mats are des­per­ate­ly need­ed.

Kay­mar Roach, the work­horse and ma­jor wick­et-tak­er of the last decade, can be used on wick­ets suit­ed to his bowl­ing. I think he can make a good coach and in­spi­ra­tional source for the young pac­ers.

Con­grat­u­la­tions must sure­ly be ced­ed to coach Dar­ren Sam­my, even if grudg­ing­ly by his crit­ics, for the re­sults in the Test are­na. But as ar­tic­u­lat­ed and ac­knowl­edged around the re­gion and by rep­utable scribes, for­mer crick­eters and fans, hav­ing him or any­one else as the sole se­lec­tor and head coach is com­plete­ly il­log­i­cal and nar­rows the pos­si­bil­i­ty of seek­ing tal­ent across the re­gion by hav­ing a slate of se­lec­tors tour­ing the re­gion to un­earth po­ten­tial tal­ent. Hav­ing Sam­my, pre­oc­cu­pied with all of the West In­di­an teams and al­so with his fran­chise in the CPL, does not on­ly push it too far but se­ri­ous­ly lim­its hav­ing a va­ri­ety of per­spec­tives on play­ers.

Of con­cern is the spar­si­ty of Test match crick­et up ahead for the WI in the cur­rent ICC World Test Cham­pi­onship, which ends in June 2027, with the West In­dies hav­ing on­ly one more Test in this round against Afghanistan in Feb­ru­ary 2027.

The sched­ul­ing for the next round, still to be fi­nalised, and the pro­posed start of the Two-Tier Test match sys­tem pos­si­bly tak­ing ef­fect, can im­pact un­fair­ly on all of the teams in the B league; one im­pact be­ing that the teams be­low will not get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to play against the top teams.

To be con­tin­ued.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er, free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme pro­duc­er, and news di­rec­tor at TTT, pro­gramme pro­duc­er, cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad, for­mer cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice, writer for the As­so­ci­at­ed Press, grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona in Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, his­to­ry, pol­i­tics, eco­nom­ics, and from the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, UWI, St Au­gus­tine.