In the modern era of cricket, all Test-playing nations have a hectic schedule and constantly play all three formats, which makes a selector's job equally harder. West Indies' former opener and legendary batter Desmond Haynes, opens up on challenges that come with being the chief selector of the West Indies cricket team, who have very high odds in online cricket betting for the upcoming T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia.
Desmond Haynes, who has 7,487 runs to his name in 116 test matches, averaging 42.29 first of all opened up on why did he become a selector. Haynes was the selector for Barbados Cricket Association in the 1990s. Since he wanted to keep serving the Windies' cricket and the position was open for the chief selector & was offered to him, his dedication towards the country swayed him into saying yes.
The 66-year old opines that the key to selecting good players is to watch them play instead of just looking at the stats since the numbers don't show the 'character' of the player. Haynes went on to explain that the Windies selector panel consisted of five people, which has come down to three, himself, a co-selector and the head coach. And accordingly, Desmond heeds both the parties and select the players accordingly.
However, on one of the more important matters, regarding the headache that comes with selecting teams for all three formats amidst a considerably hectic schedule. Haynes says that the rotation of players is of utmost importance, especially the fast bowlers. As there's a test series vs England coming up for them, the lead selector says, 'If you've got four fast bowlers, it's going to be very hard for all of them to play 15 days of cricket straight up. It also allows you to give another guy a game.'
Finally, on the current batch of West Indies' players, Desmond Haynes is all praises. He opines that there will always be a talented pool of players in the West Indies, but not having the numbers is 'unfortunate'. On being compared to Australia & India, he says it's illogical as the other countries have a much larger population.
Moreover, he goes on to say that it's important for ICC to assist smaller cricketing nations like West Indies, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, nations with a smaller population so whenever funds are distributed among the cricketing nations, it should be split accordingly to help these countries improve their cricket conditions and consequently improve their game.
West Indies suffered a 0-3 whitewash against India in the recently concluded ODI series against India. They started off the T20I series with a loss in the first match and would want to make a comeback in their preferred format. Before this, Windies defeated England 3-2 in the T20I series at home.
