Editor: Once again the West Indies cricket team has lost another test series. This has become an all too familiar story. If West Indies continue in this trend, they would eventually lose their test status, as they would drop to the bottom of the rankings.

While we agree that you have to build for the future, you have to mix the experience with the youths. Omitting Shiv Chanderpaul has proven to be a big mistake. Currently, there is no batsman with the determination and love for batting on the team.{{more}}

It is felt that the current captain would one day become a great captain and also be one of the leading all-rounders in the world. While the aforementioned may be true, let us look at it honestly. Holder has never captained any major team before. Therefore, putting him out in the cold with a weak team is like setting him up for failure. Although he is a good developing all-rounder, I am afraid if the trend continues where the team fails, it would eventually affect his performance both as a player and captain. Then, like Sammy, he would be just blocking the space of someone else. And like Sammy, while still young, he would be discarded.

It would have been better that he be given the job of vice-captain under Sammy, who in my mind was a good captain. Then afterwards, let him get experience captaining Barbados and the West Indies A team. In that way he would have established himself more and be more assertive.

When we look at the composition of the team, how can the selectors persist in placing SHAI HOPE to open for West Indies when he does not even open for Barbados? Hope is a young man with potential and promise, but he is not an opener. He is better served in the middle order. Of course, he will continue to fail and his potential put to waste. Then he will eventually be dropped from the team and another young man would then go to waste in terms of confidence and contribution to West Indies cricket.

Let us hope that West Indies will once again rise and let us hope that, once again, smiles would return to the faces of West Indians whenever West Indies play cricket. Let us, nevertheless, RALLY ROUND THE WEST INDIES.

Kennard King