Top class West Indies talent, Shimron Hetmyer, has been left out of the squad for the upcoming Sri Lanka tour after failing to meet the required fitness standard for the second time in just around one year.

The exclusion due to falling short of the fitness requirement is a repeat such issue for Hetmyer, who also missed out on selection in February of last year for a tour match against the same opponents.  The 24-year-old Guyanese batsman has been in splendid form of late, only yesterday, crafting a masterful century to push Guyana Jaguars to the semi-final of the Regional Super50 competition.

According to Cricket West Indies (CWI) stipulations, players must pass a battery of tests that measure stamina and endurance, called the Yoyo test, before being eligible for selection.

The test is, however, not without controversy as some players who do not make the 40 grade in the yoyo test are given exemptions, at times much to the annoyance of those players who fail to meet the grade.

Hetmyer will be joined on the sidelines by fast bowlers Sheldon Cottrell and Oshane Thomas, along with West Indies vice-captain and all-rounder Roston Chase.  Cottrell and Hetmyer were among 12 players who declined to take part in the team’s tour of Bangladesh earlier this month, after citing health and safety concerns.

Chris Gayle and Fidel Edwards have been recalled to the West Indies squad for next month’s T20 Internationals against Sri Lanka.

  Experienced fast bowler Fidel Edwards has been tipped to make a return to the West Indies squad, ahead of the Sri Lanka T20 series, which could mark his first appearance for the team in over eight years.

The 39-year-old pace bowler last suited up for the regional team against Sri Lanka, at Pallekele, in 2012.  Edwards has been unavailable for selection after signing a Kolpak deal in 2015.  However, the player became available again with the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union and the termination of such contracts.

Earlier this year, the player announced his availability for the West Indies and also took part in the IPL and Abu Dhabi T10 League.  Despite being one of the oldest active players, in the sport, Edwards has lost none of the pace he has always been noted for and is cable of exceeding 90mph deliveries.  His pace and guile were very much on display in a fiery over against in-form young compatriot Nicholas Pooran during the T10 league.

The Barbadian-born right-arm pacer has played 20 T20 internationals for the West Indies and claimed 16 wickets.  He has also taken part in 55 Tests and 50 One-day Internationals.  Edwards hopes to be part of the T20 World Cup squad, which will attempt to defend its title in October.

It will be a battle of the Southern Caribbean for the Sir Clive Lloyd trophy, when Guyana Jaguars face-off with the unbeaten Trinidad & Tobago Red Force in the CG Insurance Super50 Final on Saturday, after the Guyanese comfortably defeated the Windward Islands Volcanoes in the second semi-final.

Playing on Thursday at the Coolidge Cricket Ground, Guyana’s victory was first set up by a magnificent century from Shimron Hetmyer, who was deservedly named the CG Insurance Man-of-the-Match.  He scored his seventh List A century of 112 and it came off 80 balls with 11 fours and five sixes. He was well supported by Raymon Reifer who made a career-best 90 off 104 balls with eight fours and three sixes.

The left-handed pair boosted the Jaguars to 305 for 7 – the third 300-plus total in the tournament. Then, under the floodlights, leading wicket-taker Gudakesh Motie (53 for 4) led the charge with the ball as the Windwards were routed for 210 all out in 46.4 overs.

The Jaguars started poorly with the bat and were forced into errors courtesy of some outstanding bowling by the Volcanoes. They initially slumped to 63 for 4 in the 12th over as skipper Leon Johnson was out first ball after he top-edged an attempted hook off pacer Ray Jordan – who had an inspired first spell of 12 for 3. It was Kevin Stoute who took a stupendous catch. to dismiss Johnson, as he ran in from the fence at long-leg and dived full stretch.

One run later, Hetmyer (12) was dropped by wicket-keeper Emmanuel Stewart. This proved to be the game-changing moment as in partnership with Reifer, who was playing his first game of competition, Hetmyer procured a regional List A record fifth-wicket partnership of 194. The total eclipsed the previous mark of 159 unbroken between Devon Thomas and Jahmar Hamilton for the Leeward Islands against Combined Campuses & Colleges at Conaree, St Kitts in Super50 2019.

Although the Windwards kept the Jaguars from scoring an even bigger score by conceding only 49 scored in the final 10 overs, they never looked capable of chasing the target. No one supported top-scoring opener Alick Athanaze, who made a patient 58.

Former Cricket West Indies (CWI) president, Dave Cameron, insists the controversial eligibility rules put in place during his tenure were never meant to disenfranchise players.

The legislation, which was implemented as the region jostled with the cash-rich T20 leagues for the commitment of its top players, stated that players who did make themselves available for domestic competitions would be ineligible for international selection.

As a result, many of the region’s top players were often left out of the line-up, which left the Windies' Test and ODI sides shorn of some of their best talents.  Cameron insists that the hope at the time was to encourage more balance between the West Indians taking part in cash-rich T20 leagues and representing the regional team.

“It was never about not wanting players to play around the world.  We respected that, we accepted that, but, West Indies cricket doesn’t have a product if we don’t have our best players playing.  So we needed to find a way to get our players to have the understanding that you can’t play everything,” Cameron told the Mason and Guest radio program.

“In the early days, I had a conversation with the players about telling us what they were going to play and when they would be available.  So the selectors could understand where they want to go.  After the strike occurred in India players decided that they weren’t going to play, and for the reduced salaries, so the West Indies first policy never actually got a chance,” he added.

“It was never intended to disenfranchise anybody, but look at what is happening in New Zealand, they still play in the leagues but they give their all to New Zealand when New Zealand is on the stage.  That’s all we were saying, as our senior players, you can’t play everything.”

 Cricket West Indies (CWI) today confirmed its third new multi-year broadcast rights agreement with SuperSport securing the rights to West Indies cricket until the end of 2024 in sub-Saharan Africa.

The four-year agreement will see SuperSport feature exclusive live coverage of all West Indies international home matches and regional tournaments played in the Caribbean on its television and digital platforms.

As part of the agreement, West Indies cricket will now be seen in over 54 African countries and islands, including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Kenya. SuperSport’s coverage starts with the recently confirmed West Indies versus Sri Lanka series which commences on Wednesday, March 3 with three CG Insurance T20 International matches.

The agreement also includes the rescheduled visit by South Africa to the Caribbean in June 2021, a tour that had to be rescheduled from July 2020 due to COVID-19.

“This new long-term SuperSport agreement ensures that the much-loved West Indies teams will be accessible to an expanded number of African consumer markets with sub-Saharan Africa’s premier broadcaster,” said CWI President Ricky Skerritt.

“As CWI’s third major media rights agreement finalized in the past few weeks, we are excited that SuperSport will be featuring every international series and regional tournament from the Caribbean, including the upcoming Sri Lanka Series and the rescheduled tour of the West Indies by South Africa in June.”

 Johnny Grave, CWI CEO said the agreement is another step of taking West Indies crickets into new markets.

 “We are absolutely delighted to confirm this significant four-year agreement with SuperSport to ensure that millions of cricket fans in Sub-Saharan Africa can follow West Indies Cricket in the Caribbean,” Grave said.

“By partnering with Africa’s leading sports broadcaster, CWI continues to deliver against our strategic objective of increasing the worldwide audience for and access to one of the world’s most loved cricket teams and regions.”

 This is the third major broadcast agreement announced by CWI following the recent ground-breaking agreements with ESPN+ for the United States market and with BT Sport for the United Kingdom and Ireland markets.​

Of all the important partnerships that Joshua Da Silva featured in during the West Indies successful Test series against Bangladesh, there was one that the Trinidadian wicketkeeper-batsman said he enjoyed the most.

Trinidad and Tobago Red Force made it six wins in a row, as they produced a commanding performance to power past the Jamaica Scorpions and into the CG Insurance Super50 final.

This victory was set up by three key efforts,  Ravi Rampaul started with the ball and was then complemented by Lendl Simmons and Nicholas Pooran with the bat.

Firstly Rampaul, in claiming his second CG Insurance Man-of-the-Match award of the tournament, with figures of 29 for 4, played a key role in restricting the Scorpions to a below-par score of 255-7 on a very good batting surface.

In reply, batting second for the sixth consecutive match, Simmons (63) scored his 27th List A half-century to set the perfect platform, before Pooran’s unbeaten innings of 54, his 11th List A half-century, finished things off in style with eight overs to spare.

Earlier on, Jamaica lost the early wicket of Aldaine Thomas but after that John Campbell (88) and Brandon King (58) played well. When they reached 95-1 in the 22nd over, King smashed Jason Mohammed for a big straight six to bring up his second half-century of the tournament.

The Red Force would strike five overs later with the Scorpions, at 113-2 in the 27th over, when King gave Anderson Phillip his second wicket, playing back to a delivery that kept a bit low. The wicket ended the 108-run second-wicket alliance between Campbell and King.

At 168-2 in the 35^th over, the Scorpions looked set for a big final charge. However, the Campbell/McCarthy third-wicket partnership of 58 runs would end as McCarthy (35) presented a catch off veteran leg-spinner Imran Khan to Rampaul at leg on.

Attempting to defend that total, the Scorpions almost got a perfect start in the first over, but Nkrumah Bonner dropped a difficult long-on boundary catch from Simmons off Scorpions off-spinner Jamie Merchant. When Red Force were 29-0 in the fifth over, Evin Lewis (14) was also dropped by Campbell at first slip, again by the unlucky Merchant. As the big-hitting opening duo raced to their 50-partnership in the eighth over, those missed catches were even more critical.

Leading up to the 25th over, Jamaica got three wickets, the last of which when Simmons (68) skied a catch off Allen to Bonner at the long-on boundary. Despite T&T further losing Jason Mohammed (41), who was bowled by Odean Smith, Pooran (54 not out) was joined by captain Pollard (36 not out) who quickly hit five massive sixes to celebrate the win in style and get ready for Saturday's grand final.

Prominent Guyana attorney Arudranauth Gossai has cast doubts any injunction put forward to prevent the staging of the Guyana Cricket Board elections on Friday will succeed, as he does not believe the objections to be ground on a firm legal footing.

Earlier this week, lawyers for Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Secretary Anand Sanasie wrote sharply worded letters to Guyana Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Charles Ramson Jr and Attorney Kamal Ramkarran, objecting to the appointment of both a cricket Ombudsman and the 7-day time period given for the staging of elections as illegal under the Guyana Cricket Administration Act.

The attorneys had given the minister until Tuesday to withdraw the appointment or that legal action could be taken to quash the appointment.  The letters further asserted that close relations with Cricket West Indies president Ricky Skerritt had tainted the overall decision.

In response, Ramson Jr flatly rejected all the assertions made by Sanasie’s attorneys and insisted that he was on firm legal ground and well within the powers of the Guyana Cricket Administration Act.

“While it must be stated at the outset that since the restoration of the provisions of the Guyana Cricket Administration Act 2014 and pursuant to Order of Court by Justice Fidela Corbin in Berbice Cricket Board v Fizul Bacchus et al dated 3rd April 2019 in Action number 2018-HC-DEM-CIV-FDA-1200, the capacity in which your client purports to instruct you is not recognized, paragraph two is denied and your position on the issue is incorrect as it is res judicata (see Judgement of Fidela Corbin dated 3rd April 2019 in SAYWACK V LEWIS in Action number 2018-HC-DEM-CIV-FDA-808),” the minister wrote in response.

“The Guyana Cricket Administration Act 2014, the subject Minister is entitled, empowered, and obliged to appoint the Cricket Ombudsman and the date for the first election of the Guyana Cricket Board until completed. I fraternally take the liberty to direct your attention to paras 15, 26, and 27 of the judgment.”

Gossai, who has been closely aligned to the issue as a legal representative of the Berbice Cricket Board (BC), agrees the minister is within his rights.

“In order to get an injunction you have to show that your claim is going to succeed.  I see some letters circulating in the press purportedly from Mr Sanasie’s lawyers to the minister to the president of Cricket West Indies and the Ombudsman and based on those things in the letter if those are the grounds then they are bound to fail,” Gossai told the Mason and Guest radio program.

“One of the things they are saying is that the minister cannot appoint another Ombudsman because he has already appointed an Ombudsman and that person has resigned.  But strangely enough, I notice in that letter that there is no mention of Sanasie when he was quote and quote secretary of the cricket board Mr (Dave) Cameron had consulted with the minister and appointed another Ombudsman.  For some strange reason, it might have been an oversight but that was left out of the correspondence.”

Former West Indies batting coach, Toby Radford, has suggested calls to replace all-rounder Jason Holder are an overreaction and would stick with the current captain, despite the success of Kraigg Brathwaite in Bangladesh.

Brathwaite was widely commended for his role in leading an understrength team to a 2-0 win away to Bangladesh earlier this month. Holder, on the other hand, was one of 12 players to pull out of the tour after citing health and safety concerns.

Holder had, however, also pointed to feeling some level of fatigue having had to deal with quarantine situations in both the West Indies prior tours of England and New Zealand.  However, in addition, aspects of the team’s performance on those tours had also put Holder and his captaincy under the microscope.

While admitting that the team had performed exceptionally well in Bangladesh, Radford, however, sees no reason to replace Holder as the man in charge for the upcoming Sri Lanka series.

“I think they surprised everybody not least of all Bangladesh, probably their own supporters as well.  They performed really well.  But it’s very easy to get carried away, isn’t it? You have a couple of big wins like that and then suddenly we have done it because Kraigg Brathwaite is captain and Jason Holder wasn’t captain,” Radford told the Mason and Guest radio program.

“Who’s to know if Jason was captain whether you would have had the two wins anyway,” he added.

“There were a lot of very good individual performances and because individuals play well and you win two matches, to me, that isn’t down to captaincy.”

In supporting his decision to stick with Holder, Radford pointed to the example of the incident with India captain Virat Kolhi, which occurred during the Asian team's big win over Australia.

“It was raised the other day, someone mentioned Virat Kohli.  They (India) lost the game in Australia, he went home for the birth of his child.  They went suddenly and won a couple of games.  When they started the Test series against England, in India, nobody questioned whether Kohli should captain the team. He came back in because he was captain.”

West Indies star batsman, Chris Gayle, will return to the Caribbean to take part in the upcoming series against Sri Lanka, interrupting his ongoing participation in the Pakistan Super League.

With the T20I World Cup just a few months away, the talismanic batsman, who has indicated a desire to suit up for the Caribbean team for the tournament, could return to the team for the first time in over a year.  Gayle last played the West Indies in August of 2019, when he played an ODI against India.  

On that occasion, the player had received a standing ovation as many had thought the game was his final in international cricket, after previously announcing his attention to retire.

The West Indies will play Sri Lanka in three T20 series, three One Day International (ODI) series, and a two-Test series.  Gayle is expected to take part in the T20I series between March 3 and March 7 before returning to the PSL to compete for the Quetta Gladiators.

The arrangement was made prior to the season, with Faf du Plessis expected to replace Gayle for the matches in which he will be absent.  The World Cup is due to take place in India in October-November.  The Caribbean team won the last edition of the tournament, also in India, in 2016.

Lawyers for Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Secretary Anand Sanasie have written strong objections to the decision of Guyana Culture, Youth, and Sports Minister Charles Ramson Jr to appoint Attorney Kamal Ramkarran as cricket Ombudsman.

In two letters, one to Ramson and the other to Ramkarran, the attorney’s pointed out that they deemed the appointment, made in accordance with Section 17 of the Guyana Cricket Administration Act, Chapter 21:03, Laws of Guyana, to be illegal, based on the fact that it was carried out more than once.

In addition to vehemently disputing Ramson’s claims that the Cricket West Indies (CWI) board was consulted, the letters pointed out that a 7-day period for holding the proposed elections was unreasonable.

“This is the third such appointment to be made by a Minister of Sport. The first person appointed under that section was Professor Winston McGowan. He served in the office for some time and then resigned. The Minister is only once required to exercise his power to appoint a Cricket Ombudsman. The Minister claims to have “just” consulted with CWI in his Notice appointing you as Cricket Ombudsman, which was published on the 19th February 2021,” the document read.

“We are instructed that the Minister did not meaningfully or at all consult with CWI. There has been no meeting with CWI convened for this purpose. Our client is aware that the Minister shares a close relationship with the current President of CWI and supports his re-election as President of CWI in elections slated for March 2021. Our client is his challenger for the post of President at the upcoming CWI elections.”

Should Sanasie be defeated in the election, he would be ineligible to challenge Skerritt for the post of CWI president.

“The consultation which was critical to the validity of your appointment was improper for the foregoing reasons and was motivated by an improper purpose and was taken in furtherance of the interest of the current President, Mr. Ricky Skerritt who did not raise the issue of the Cricket Ombudsman of Guyana with the Board as is required by the Cricket Administration Act.

Meaningful consultation could not in the circumstances take place by a phone call between the Minister and a single member of the Board of CWI. Your appointment is, therefore, illegal and we call upon you to decline the appointment and/or resign. The Minister has fixed a time frame of less than seven (7) days with which you are to fulfil your obligations of the establishment and verification of a Register of Clubs.”

The attorneys have demanded Ramkarran resign from the post or legal proceedings would begin to quash the appointment.

He has only played three Test matches for the West Indies but wicketkeeper/batsman Joshua Da Silva believes he has made great strides in his development as a batsman since he made his debut in New Zealand in December 2020.

Former West Indies fast bowler and Barbados cricketer, Ian Bradshaw, would not be in favour of replacing team captain Jason Holder just yet but believes questions regarding the player’s state of mind must be cleared up.

On the back of an impressive effort in marshaling the squad to defeat Bangladesh, in a two-Test series last week, calls have arisen for Kraigg Brathwaite to lead the team, ahead of regular captain Holder, for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka.

Holder missed out on the team’s tour of Bangladesh after being one of 12 players to pull out of the campaign due to health and safety concerns.  In addition, however, the captain, who had led the team to previous tours of England and New Zealand, also admitted to experiencing a high level of fatigue, particularly having gone through several weeks of quarantine.

For Bradshaw, provided he is in a good mental state, Holder should resume his duties leading the squad.

“I would support the retention of Jason if it is that we understand his state of mind at this time,” Bradshaw told the Mason and Guest radio program.

“Jason has been earmarked as our long-term captain.  Let’s recall that he’s had some success and we were very excited when we won the Wisden Trophy.  He has had some success and he has been molding the team,” he added.

“He has led by example and I would want to sit down with him and understand the challenges he was going through.  Because if he is still challenged it may need a situation where he is given that space to ensure that his individual performance does not suffer.”

Holder was appointed captain of the team in 2015.

West Indies fast bowling legend, Curtly Ambrose, has not been selected for the position of England Cricket Board (ECB) elite pace-bowling coach, despite making the shortlist of candidates interviewed.

The ECB put out an advertisement for three vacant positions, pace-bowling coach, spin-bowling coach and batting coach, in December.  Interviews were conducted in recent weeks after applications closed last month.

Ambrose, who made known that he had applied for the post a few weeks ago, revealed that he had been contacted but unfortunately was not selected for the post.

“I got a call from one of the panellists yesterday [Thursday] to inform me that I was unsuccessful in my bid. The interview went very well. There were four panellists and everything went according to plan and I thought I did a wonderful job, so I was pretty excited. I thought I probably would have made it but I am not going to really worry too much about it. To have made the shortlist is a step in the right direction obviously,” Ambrose told the Antigua Observer.

With the Ashes on the horizon, Ambrose, who has taken 128 wickets against Australia (fourth-best all-time, with the best economy rate among the top 5), admits that he was hoping that his previously dominant performances down under might have weighed in his favour.

“I was expecting to be part of the squad considering the World T20 coming up and, of course, the Ashes. You know that when England play Australia in the Ashes, it’s a big one and I thought that maybe because of my tremendous success in Australia that it would have, at least, given me an extra step, but it didn’t work out and I am quite happy with how everything went. In life, we get some good news and some not so good, and you learn to accept it and move on,” he said.

The 57-year-old previously worked as West Indies bowling consultant between 2014 and 2016.  He was replaced by Roddy Estwick.