Clean sweep at the top

Tony Becca , Senior Sport Editor

10 March 1998


CRICKET: Bridgetown: The West Indies selectors turned up with a surprise move yesterday when they dropped both opening batsmen, Sherwin Campbell and Stuart Williams and included two discarded openers, Clayton Lambert and Philo Wallace, in the 13-squad for the fifth Test against England starting at Kensington Oval on Thursday.

In a move which sent shock waves around Bridgetown, not because of the omission of Williams or the inclusion of Wallace, but because of the exclusion of hometown boy Campbell and the recall of the 36 year old Lambert, the West Indies selectors also ignored fast bowler Franklyn Rose who was in the squad for the first three Test matches.

The squad: Brian Lara - captain, Philo Wallace, Clayton Lambert, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Carl Hooper, James Adams, Roland Holder, David Williams, Ian Bishop, Curtley Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Nixon McLean, Dinanath Ramnarine.

Lambert, an aggressive left-hander played his only Test against England in 1991 and scored four and 35 for Guyana against the tourists at Everest Cricket Club, while Wallace, an aggressive right-hander who scored five and eight at Rawalpindi against Pakistan recently in his only Test match, scored an attractive first innings 68 - one six and 11 boundaries - for Barbados against the tourists in the match which ended at Kensington Oval yesterday.

Apart from the anger over the omission of Campbell who, apart from scoring two centuries - including 208 versus New Zealand, and 12 fifties in 30 Test matches, was the top batsman in Pakistan with 248 runs from six innings, Barbadians yesterday once again asked two questions: What has happened to Franklyn Rose? What has Rose done


Source: The Jamaica Gleaner

Contributed by CricInfo Management, and reproduced with permission
help@cricinfo.com

Date-stamped : 10 Mar1998 - 22:27