Tony Becca - FROM THE BOUNDARY THE MAIN talking point during the first Test between the West Indies and Bangladesh and, to an extent after it, was the absence of a specialist spin bowler in the home team's attack.
The consensus, it appears, was that despite the number of dropped catches, most by one man, the presence of a specialist spin bowler would quite likely have led to a West Indies victory and the question still on everyone's lips is this: why did the Windies selectors go for an attack of four fast bowlers and not three and a specialist spin bowler?
According to those close to the selection process, one answer is that, two of the three selectors, chairman Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge, were members of the West Indies team that ruled the roost, that dominated the world of cricket mainly because of a battery of fast bowlers, and that in spite of captain Brian Lara's objection, they insisted that it be four fast bowlers.
Another answer is that with left-arm spinner Dave Mohammed the one specialist spin bowler in the squad, there was not a spin bowler good enough to be selected.
If answer number one is true, it suggests that the selectors are not only blinkered, are not only living in the past, but also that they fail to appreciate the fact that while they represent a set of young, promising fast bowlers, the likes of Fidel Edwards, Tino Best, Jermaine Lawson, Pedro Collins and company are short of the class, the quality of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Sylvester Clarke, Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Patrick Patterson.
SPECIALIST SPIN BOWLER
If answer number two is true, if there was not a specialist spin bowler good enough to be selected over one of Edwards, Best, Lawson who was just returning to action after a long lay-off, and Collins, it suggests that something is really wrong with West Indies cricket and the selectors. If Mohammed was not good enough to play on a pitch that many believed would have assisted spin as the match progressed, if he was not good enough to play over one of those fast bowlers, it is to difficult to understand why he was in the squad in the first place.
Although West Indies selectors are answerable to no one, that is the question they should be asked - just as how they should be asked what has happened since they named that squad to justify the omission of Mohammed and the inclusion of offspinner Omari Banks in the squad for today's match.
Mohammed certainly has not bowled a ball in a match since then and neither has Banks who has played in only one match since his injury.
While the history of West Indies cricket is filled with many great fast bowlers and only three great spin bowlers, history has never won a cricket match, and the selectors, the one-eyed selectors of the West Indies, should recognise that.
Apart from all the other good reasons for the inclusion of a spin bowler in a match scheduled for five days, West Indies cricket today is short of quality fast bowlers, in Mohammed and Banks, it possesses two spin bowlers who are good as most of the young fast bowlers, and remembering that the selectors responsibility is to select the best bowlers, one of them should be selected in the team - and especially so when the pitch that promises to assist spin. It is indictment on West Indies cricket that the selectors did not consider a spin bowler good enough to play on a pitch that would have suited him more that it did the fast bowlers an embarrassment to Mohammed and Banks that they had to look on while batsmen Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle, who finished with nine wickets between them, bowled overs after overs in a bid to bowl the West Indies into a winning position.
