Bonner opted for CCC, says selector

Sanjay Myers

Friday, February 10, 2012

JAMAICA’S chairman of selectors Courtney Daley says the non-inclusion of all-rounder Nkrumah Bonner in the national four-day cricket squad is based on the player’s reasoning that he is likely to get more opportunities playing for the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC).

Daley said the middle-order batsman notified team captain Tamar Lambert and head coach Junior Bennett of his decision before the start of the 2012 West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) four-day championship.

“He spoke with the captain and the coach and explained that he wanted to play for the CCC and that was his choice. He felt he would have more opportunities with the CCC, particularly in the bowling department,” he told the Observer last week.

Daley added that Bonner, who is an effective wristspin bowler, felt that being in the Jamaica team alongside the illustrious slow bowling duo of Odean Brown and Nikita Miller would limit his chances to shine with the ball.

“Jamaica has Odean and Nikita so he (Bonner) figured that it (playing for the CCC) would have been more open to him from a spin bowling respect. He felt he would get more from his game with the CCC in terms of bowling,” he said.

Bonner, who also represented the CCC during their highly successful four-day campaign last season, played in the opening round loss to Trinidad & Tobago last weekend.

A former Jamaica youth player, Bonner has played one Twenty20 (T20) International for the senior West Indies team. That was against England at The Oval in London last September.

Bonner has also benefitted from the intense training programmes at the Sagicor High Performance Centre and scored a century for West Indies ‘A’ against their Bangladesh counterparts in a ‘Test’ in Antigua last year.

In 14 first-class matches, he averaged 24.18 with the bat and a very good 24.66 with the ball.

At the recently-concluded Caribbean T20 tournament, Bonner playing for Jamaica, was the competition’s second highest runscorer with 172 runs at an average of 34.4 and was given the ‘Star Award’ by the organisers.

Daley said given the promise shown by Bonner, the Jamaica selection panel was seriously considering the right-handed batsman.

“We had been looking at him very closely. I figure that we could have used him in our team as an extra batsman. We all know what he can do and his talent was shown in the (Caribbean) Twenty20,” he said.

Today Jamaica host Barbados at Sabina Park in Kingston, while the CCC challenge the Leeward Islands at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown.