I am baffled by the omission of Obed McCoy from the West Indies T20 World Cup squad. I would have him in place of Shamar Joseph. I refuse to believe any selection bias since McCoy is from St Vincent and the Grenadines. I cast no aspersions.

We can’t expect Shamar to repeat his Australia heroics every game he plays in from now on. That is detrimental to his international career and it is placing unreasonable expectations and unnecessary pressure on him. The headlines are waiting to tear him apart. Look what happened to Carlos Brathwaite after that infamous over; his career fell off.

The rest of the squad is perfect, don’t get me wrong, but this was a selection that didn’t need to be tampered with. McCoy has been opening the bowling for the West Indies for the past three years. Except for his absence due to injury, he was instrumental in taking wickets in the powerplay in our series victories against India and South Africa.

Raw pace is sweetbread in this format, especially with the kind of boundaries we have in the Caribbean. We need to be strategic and bring variation to our pace bowling department, which is what made Dwayne Bravo so successful in this format.

There is no impact player like in other T20 leagues that turn the game into a run fest. The best bowling units will win T20 matches and henceforth the tournament.

I wanted CWI to be ruthless, but it has to be justified. Like when Mikel Arteta dropped GK Ramsdale for Raya at Arsenal – ruthless, but it turned out to be an improvement in the team’s performance. Perhaps head coach Daren Sammy has a trick up his sleeve with this decision.

No excuses now, the West Indies is the favourite. My advice to the team would be to not disrespect the associate nations and play each game and not the occasion.

KENDELL KARAN

Chaguanas