Unnecessary!

This is with regard to the only one dayer played between the West Indies and Canada yesterday which obviously was won by West Indies by 208 runs. No one could see this ODI between the West Indies and Canada in the ICC's FTP earlier. One has to think as to what on earth makes the ICC have such matches played and that too just one off game wherein one team or both of them are expected to fly to some other country just for that one game which is absolutely unnecessary! Is it so that the West Indies get a practice match before going into the world T20 scheduled there from April 30^th onwards?

More than half of the players from the West Indies international team are busy playing in the 3^rd edition of the Indian Premier League that includes their captain Chris Gayle. One has to indeed appreciate the West Indies Cricket Board for not forcing their players to fly back home to play this one useless one dayer against a team that is yet to attain test status in cricket. There was a match between the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Chennai Superkings wherein players like Chris Gayle who was playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders and on the other side, there was Kieon Pollard and Dwayne Bravo who featured in the match between the Mumbai and Delhi.

May be, this is the first time players from one particular team were playing simultaneously for three different teams and for two different tournaments though the one off match between Canada and West Indies cannot be called as a tournament. Likewise, even Chandrapaul was supposed to be playing for the Royal Challengers which forms a different issue here. This was also the first instance where two West Indian players are awarded the man of the match, first when Kieron Pollard hit a 13 ball 45 runs to see Mumbai Indians win yet another encounter against Delhi Daredevils and on the other side, Chanderpaul hit a century to see his team beat Canada.

And, if one takes pains to go through the scorecard of the match between West Indies and Canada, it was once again a combined effort of Chanderpaul, Darren Bravo and Sarwan who form the senior lot. A little bit of brains from the WICB should have seen them giving young players a chance to showcase their skills especially when they were playing Canada on their home ground. Forget that! When there were senior players in the team, the total should have gone well past 350 atleast. But no. May be the WICB was missing the services of their inform players like Dwayne Bravo and Chris Gayle who are playing in the IPL.