Related Links

May 02, 2007

The West Indies Cricket Board has named Ramnaresh Sarwan as the new leader of their team following the retirement of Brian Lara. The 26-year-old will be leading the West Indies squad for the upcoming England tour.

West Indies will be playing four test matches followed with two Twenty20 Internationals and three ODIs on their England tour. As far as Sarwan is concerned, he has been the Vice-Captain of the team on several occasions. The Guyanese had made his international debut during the millennium. In the seven years of cricket at the top level, Sarwan has played 65 Tests and 124 ODIs, getting more than 4000 runs in both formats.

Ramnaresh Sarwan's only competitor for the Captaincy post was Daren Ganga, who has been a regular in the Test Squad but not the ODI Squad. Ganga has led West Indies 'A' teams previously and has been a natural leader. However, he lost out to a more aggressive and flamboyant Sarwan.

Sarwan did get previous opportunities of leading the West Indies, which he did in four ODIs. Three of them were against Bangladesh in 2004 which was a 3-0 clean sweep. The Guyanese had first led West Indies against England in the 1st ODI of a home series in his hometown Georgetown, which was in a losing cause. As far as the numbers go, Sarwan has got just 47 runs in the 4 ODIs as Captain with a pathetic average of 15.66. He surely will have to show the world that captaincy doesn't curtail his batting flow.

Top of the Page