JCA names four-man panel to select team for regional tourney
The Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) will utilise a four-man selection panel, chaired by former spinner Courtney Daley, to oversee the naming of the senior squad to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Regional 50-overs tournament to be staged in Guyana from October 17 to 31.
The Observer understands that the panel will also consist of former West Indies left-handed batsman and current Jamaica Under-19 coach Robert Samuels and former national opener Delroy Morgan.
Both Daley and Morgan have previously served as senior selectors, but it will be Samuels’ first stint at this level.
The quartet is completed by a national senior coach, but the JCA is yet to announce the successor to Trinidadian tactician Augustine Logie, who replaced Junior Bennett on a four-month contract last season.
Like Bennett, the former West Indies middle-order batsman guided Jamaica to four-day glory, but faltered in the Caribbean Twenty20 tournament.
Bennett coached the team to consecutive regional four-day triumphs in the 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons. He was also the man at the helm when Jamaica won the 2007-08 regional 50-overs competition.
The JCA is likely to name a provisional training squad by September 19, and secretary Fritz Harris told the Observer recently that the senior coach will be announced next week, in time to participate in that selection process.
“Some recommendations have been put in for the coach of the senior team and one will be named (next week),” he said.
Harris added: “I don’t think the delay (in appointing a coach) will make a major difference to how the team prepares because the actual training programme will not start before a coach is named.
“The delay has been because of a change in model of how the JCA operates and it is seen with how the coaches for the Under-15 and Under-19 teams were selected. In the past the coach would be on something like a year-long contract, but now the JCA selects from a panel for a particular national programme,” he said.