Harper among four new senior WI selectors
Former West Indies off-spinner and coach Roger Harper is among four men chosen by Cricket West Indies to be on the senior selection panel for the regional team.
Harper, a Guyanese, will be joined by the former Windward Islands batsman and selector Lockhart Sebastien, who was removed earlier this year before the new selection guidelines were being put in place. Sebastien reapplied and was chosen on the new panel. He was part of the Courtney Browne-led panel that included Eldine Baptiste and Travis Dowlin.
Also making the grade as a senior selector are former Windwards batsman Miles Bascombe and Hendy Wallace, who served as chairman of the Barbados senior selection panel.
The new panel will get to work very soon choosing the West Indies team to tour India for series against Afghanistan and India which gets going in November.
Harper’s international career lasted 13 years, from 1983 to 1996 and he distinguished himself as a brilliant fielder. His Test bowling average of 28.06 is superior to that of Lance Gibbs, giving him the leading average among all West Indian spinners with at least 25 Test wickets.
After his playing career he became a coach, taking over the West Indies team between 2000 and 2003 and also managing of the West Indies Youth team in 2005. However, he was approached by Cricket Kenya in late December 2005 with an offer to take over stewardship of the Kenya team. After this, he went on to coach the West Indies team.
Bascombe is a Vincentian cricketer who played a single Twenty20 international for the West Indies in 2011. In West Indian domestic cricket, he has played for the Windward Islands and the Combined Campuses and Colleges.
Sebastien, who is Dominican, was a West Indies cricketer who played for the Combined Islands and the Windward Islands in the 1970s and 1980s. He is the father of current Windward Islands cricketer Liam Sebastien.
Wallace has been a longstanding member of the selection set-up in Barbados and has worked a lot with young cricketers on the island in addition to being a regional commentator.