A MIXUP over handwriting led yesterday to the latest of the mind-boggling blunders that have become the unwanted, but certainly not unwarranted, trademark of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
Derrick Nicholas, the WICB's cricket operations officer, e-mailed the squad for the forthcoming one-day internationals in South Africa to the media, initially excluding Shivnarine Chanderpaul, one of its most experienced and essential players, and including Carlton Baugh, the 21-year-old reserve wicket -keeper.
An hour and a half later, he issued a correction, replacing Baugh with Chanderpaul.
He got the other 14 correct, among them two newcomers - left-handed all-rounder Ian Bradshaw and right-handed batsman Kurt Wilkinson, both of Barbados - and two others not in the current Test squad - batsman Ricardo Powell, formerly Jamaica, now Trinidad and Tobago, and off-spinner Ryan Hurley, another Barbadian.
"When (chief cricket operations officer) Zoral Barthley passed the team on to me after he spoke to chairman of selectors (Sir Viv Richards) on the phone from South Africa, it was hard-written and had the name C-Paul which I interpreted as C-Baugh," Nicholas ex-plained by telephone from his office in Antigua.
"Immediately the error was pointed out, I sent out the correction," he added.
The first report of Chanderpaul's omission came as a shock but not a complete surprise.
The 29-year-old left-handed batsman, veteran of 70 Tests and 135 ODIs, was eliminated from the drawn third Test in Cape Town after straining a thigh muscle in the second in Durban when he scored a brilliant, second innings 110, batting throughout with a runner.
It was the 20th Test he has missed in the past four-and-a-half years through injury or illness.
It was feared that either his thigh muscle or the middle finger of his right hand, that had to be pinned after it was broken in the final Test against Antigua last May, when he also scored a hundred, was the cause of another withdrawal.
Fortunately, it proved to be merely another WICB error.
Baugh, batsman Daren Ganga, left-arm wrist spinner Dave Mohammed and fast bowler Adam Sanford are those presently in South Africa who will return to the Caribbean following the fourth and final Test at Centurion starting on Friday.
Wavell Hinds, the fourth injured player forced to abort the tour, is scheduled to fly back to Jamaica today to have a pulled groin muscle attended to. The four additions to the team have all been in form in the first round of the Carib Beer Series.
Bradshaw was Man of the Match in Barbados' victory over Guyana, a match in which Wilkinson scored a century (116) and Hurley picked up 2-6 in Guyana's first innings.
Powell topscored with 77 in Trinidad and Tobago's
Seven Bajans in
Windies squad for
S/A one-dayers
second innings of their match against the Leeward Islands.
Bradshaw, 29 and West Indies youth team captain to England in 1993, is finally recognised at senior level after several seasons of consistent performances in regional competitions in both forms of the game.
Wilkinson, 22, has been one of the brightest batting prospects since he was in the West Indies 'B' team three seasons ago. He scored a hundred (125) in Barbados' win in last season's Carib final against Jamaica and followed up with another in the first match this season.
Apart from Hurley's bowling and capable lower order batting and Powell's established power-hitting, they boost fielding that has been abysmal on this tour with their speed and sure-handedness.
The first of the five ODIs is in Cape Town, January 25, the last in Johannesburg February 4.
Full squad: Brian Lara (captain), Ramnaresh Sarwan (vice captain), Chris Gayle, Ridley Jacobs, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Dwayne Smith, Vasbert Drakes, Ravi Rampaul, Mervyn Dillon, Fidel Edwards, Corey Collymore, Ryan Hurley, Ian Bradshaw, Ricardo Powell and Kurt Wilkinson.