Tony Becca/ColumnistCONTROVERSY and West Indies cricket seem to go hand in hand. When it is not a problem between the board and the players, it is the selection of the team or a squad of players from which the team will be selected, and over the past few days it has been both.
On Friday, March 4 for example, after a stand-off between the board and the players, the board, through president Teddy Griffith, announced that it had directed the selectors not to include seven players in the squad from which the team for the series against South Africa and Pakistan will be selected. Almost immediately the selectors released the names of 22 players, excluding the seven, from which the team will be selected, and since then there has been a hot debate, not only over the exclusion of the seven but also over the non-selection of batsman Marlon Samuels and the selection of batsman Xavier Marshall.
Omitted from Ja team
According to those debating the selection of Marshall, the West Indies selectors should not have selected him for the simple reason that he was omitted from the Jamaica team and placed on probation for the rest of the year.
Although the selection of a player who is on suspension because of indiscipline can send the wrong signal to young players in the region, the big debate, however, has been over the non-selection of Samuels.
The consensus, it appears, is that even if Samuels would find it difficult to get into a West Indies team at full strength, even if he would still find it difficult to get into a West Indies team minus the likes of Brian Lara, Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan, it is difficult to imagine that he cannot even get into a squad of 22 - and especially so when those 22 players do not include Lara, Gayle, Sarwan, and Dwayne Smith.
According to the fans, even though Samuels, who has had more than his fair share of injuries, has not set the world on fire and has certainly not lived up to expectation, he is undoubtedly one of the most talented batsman in the West Indies, he has played a couple crucial and brilliant innings for the West Indies - one in a Test match against India, one in a one-day international against India, he is still a young man, and it must be something apart from his cricket skills why he has not been selected.
Are the fans correct? Based on the whispers from those who should know, based on reports, they are correct. Although he has not forced the selectors to select him, even though he has not addressed them with runs, plenty
of runs, Samuels' omission has nothing to do with performance or non-performance.
According to those closely involved with the team, according to some players and the majority of officials, Samuels, as talented as he may be, was lucky to have been selected for the VB series and unless there is a change in his attitude, unless there is a change in the attitude in the selectors or a change of selectors, he will be lucky if he is selected in the future.
That is unfortunate, and it is unfortunate for the simply reason that in pointing the finger at Samuels, no one, not as far as I know, has ever accused him of indiscipline.
Based on all that have been said, the problem with Samuels is his attitude, and if that is so, if, according to those who should know, it is the kind of attitude that not only suggests he is not focussed enough for Test cricket and that he is not serious enough for Test cricket but which also sees him doing things, making jokes, that, intentionally or not, is disruptive, then Samuels' future is in his own hands.
development and grooming
If the board's responsibilities include the development, the grooming of
players, however, if it is the intention of the board to ensure that the best players represent the West Indies, then Samuels' future should also be in its hands.
In other words, if the board's intention is to always select the best players, if Samuels' problem is attitude and not indiscipline of the kind that can embarrass West Indies cricket, then instead of simply omitting him, the board, along with its selectors and the Jamaica Board, should do everything possible in an effort to change his attitude - to keep him in the fold.
If that fails, if the West Indies Board really makes an effort, such as sitting him down and really talking to him about his attitude, how it probably has affected his performance, how it impacts on the other players and nothing happens, then so be it.
It is important, however, and especially so as the problem, according to so many close to the action, is attitude and not indiscipline, that every effort be made to help Samuels do justice to the talent that caused the selectors to send him, a 19-year-old who had played one first-class match three years before, not only to Australia but also to bat at number three against the likes of fast bowlers Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie and right-arm legspinner Shane Warne.
It is even more important as there are also players, senior players in the team, who believe that Samuels has done nothing that other players have not done, who are wondering why it is that while other players get away with an attitude which can also be said to affect team spirit, Samuels is the one always being criticised and always the one being punished, and who believe that there is too much double standard in West Indies cricket - that there is one rule for some and another rule for others.
