New­ly-elect­ed West In­dies 'White Ball' cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard has got­ten the ap­proval of lo­cal crick­et pun­dits who thinks that he can start a turn around in the for­tunes of West In­dies crick­et.

Pol­lard, 32, takes over the 50 overs side from Test cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er and the T20 team from Car­los Brath­waite. At the mo­ment the West In­dies are lan­guish­ing close to the bot­tom of the ICC rank­ings in both for­mats, so he will have a mighty task on his hands.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB), Az­im Bas­sarath was thrilled with the ap­point­ment say­ing: "Pol­lard has had suc­cess at all these leagues around the world and grant­ed that it is not the same lev­el as in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et, it is still of the top qual­i­ty. At times he has led dif­fer­ent teams and has shown his ca­pa­bil­i­ty as a leader. I feel that he will get the play­ers to re­spond and we are con­fi­dent that we will have a change of for­tunes."

He con­tin­ued: "We have a World T20 tour­na­ment next year in Oc­to­ber and then the next 50 overs World Cup in 2023. We need to start plan­ning for this and we have start­ed by in­still­ing a sol­id leader who is very ca­pa­ble of mould­ing an ef­fec­tive unit."

Jef­frey Guillen who was Pol­lard's long-time man­ag­er at Queen's Park made an ap­pear­ance at the press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day and said that the se­lec­tion was the right one and though it has come late, Pol­lard will still turn around the for­tunes of the team.

Guillen said: "Kieron is a good leader and we have seen this all the while. He brings with him a wealth of knowl­edge and can help the young crop of play­ers we have."

Al­so hap­py with the ap­point­ment is TKR man­ag­er Col­in Bor­de: "I have known Pol­ly all his play­ing days and one thing I can say is that he gives it his all. He is al­ways giv­ing that su­per­hu­man ef­fort and this can rub off on the play­ers un­der his charge. so far he has done a very good job as a re­place­ment for our reg­u­lar cap­tain Dwayne Bra­vo in the CPL and he has got­ten the play­ers to buy in­to his phi­los­o­phy. Al­though he is a hur­ri­cane bats­man, what im­press­es me is his calm as­sur­ance on the field of play. We have seen him take dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions and turn it around many times. Good se­lec­tion by the pow­ers at be to have him lead the West In­dies team in ODIs and T20s. (Vin­ode Mam­chan)