LETTER: Hope is carrying West Indies on his back

Hope is carrying West Indies on his back

Not only that, he’s saving Daren Sammy’s job. It’s not fair to Shai, a shocking performance by West Indian batters, we could’ve won that first test, we could’ve won the second test. I’m calling names – John Campbell, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Alick Athanze, Tevin Imlach, Roston Chase and Brandon King, you fellas should be ashamed to be Test Batters, y’all fellas belong in backyard cricket, far less village cricket. The excuse cannot be that both Josephs are ruled out injured, so the team has been at a disadvantage. That’s a load of rubbish, we’ve never had a bad bowling unit in the past decade, our batting in all forms of the game has been shocking! 

We might as well bring back Joshua Da Silva or even Jason Mohammed into the team, Sammy, Reifer and Seeteram might as well put on their whites and take the field! Imlach is a phenomenal wicketkeeper, but at international level, you can’t be in the team with that alone, you’ve got to get runs under your name. You know what, we can get Amir Jangoo into the team, why is he being sidelined in all formats?

WI are wasting Hope’s golden years by persisting with bang average players in and around him, it seems as though only ruthless selections apply to Trinidadian and Guyanese players. Imagine, there’s an Ashes series going on, and Steve Smith called Shivnarine Chanderpaul to ask about his technique and stickers under eyes to help him cope in day-night conditions when batting. His son is in the same corner of the world and can’t get past forty as an opening batter!

Hope’s got an allergic reaction to his eyes, he’s literally batting half-blind and he’s scoring half-centuries and centuries! No excuses, you fellas aren’t practicing, you guys are too comfortable, you men don’t have any balls. The best batters constantly find ways to improve, always study what they can do better – Floyd Reifer – what batting experience has he got, how did he get the job he should be sacked! Root just scored a hundred in Australia for the first time in his career at age 35, so the PR excuses about taking the positives and moving on is not cutting it anymore. I fear that there will come a point in time, just like Lara, that people will turn on him and start making him the problem for the team’s results. 

Finally, can the West Indies media team stop endlessly posting highlights of Hope’s innings to cover up the poor results of the team across formats and scraping the barrel with optimistic quotes, it is not helping. We’ve got to get to the root of the problem. Get the best performing players in the team, starting with Amir Jangoo, Khary Pierre and Kevlon Anderson. Imagine, the vice-captain of the Test team is on the bench and Khary Pierre with 41 wickets in a first class season for 2025 is nowhere near the squad. Look at South Africa’s resurgence in all formats, Sammy should be emulating that, what the hell is going on!

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