CWI exploring options on contract criteria- Dr. Shallow

By Akeem Greene

Vice-President of Cricket West Indies (CWI), Dr. Kishore Shallow, has indicated that the regional board will explore how it can tweak the current criteria used to select players for International retainer contracts.

Dr. Shallow was speaking Tuesday evening on Barbados radio programme, Mason and Guest, where he responded to a question on potential tweaks in the selection criteria.

CWI has received widespread criticism since the announcement of the 18 male players selected for the 2021-22 contractual period.

The Guyana Cricket Board, of which Lead Selector Roger Harper is a Technocrat Member, questioned the criteria after no Guyanese male cricketer was offered a contract for this period.

“I can guarantee you, that tweak or not, we are going to have criticisms and different persons are going to be sharing their opinion, so, that is never going to change, let us accept that,” Dr. Shallow expressed.

The CWI Vice-President was adamant on the fact that, “I would say we are looking at the system for awarding grades and so on with these contracts. I expect by next contractual period, we will have an improved system in terms of how we award these contracts.”

Dr. Shallow, Director of Cricket Jimmy Adams and others were involved in a fact-finding process over the last few months and have been working with the West Indies Players Association to find common ground.

Dr. Shallow’s comments came on the heels of those made by Harper just a week ago, as he expressed hope for some changes to the current policy. He however, could not disclose what areas he would want to change in relation to the terms and conditions of securing a contract.

The hardline criteria for awarding contracts mean players must participate in at least 50% of the matches which is then tied to statistical factors with regards to performance average and fitness.

According to Harper, a batsman would need to average a minimum of 30 in Tests or One-Day Internationals or have a Batsman Average and Strike Rate combined (BASR) of 150 in Twenty20 Internationals.

For bowlers, they would need a minimum average of 45 in Tests and ODIs and a similar BASAR combination is used to reach the criteria in T20I.

The evaluation period for the 2021-22 contracts covered performances and statistics from April 1, 2020, to April 1, 2021 (this was also supported by statistics from the previous 2019-2020 evaluation period).