COLOMBO, CMC:
WEST INDIES' newest fast-bowling recruit Darrel Brown has joined the Caribbean team in Sri Lanka for the triangular One-Day series featuring the host country and Zimbabwe after receiving a surprise call from the regional selectors.
Brown, hardly known outside his native Trinidad and Tobago before he was summoned to replace fast bowler Mervyn Dillon, who was sent home for disciplinary reasons, will celebrate his 28th birthday next Tuesday.
After making his first-class debut in 1999 against the touring India "A" team at the Wilson Road Recreation Ground in Penal, 50 miles south of the Port of Spain capital, Brown has only had modest returns with both bat and ball.
In 11 first-class matches, Brown has captured 17 wickets at an average of 37.35 apiece with best bowling figures of four for 80 against Guyana in the Busta Cup Series earlier this year.
As a left-handed lower order batsman, Brown has managed 226 runs from 19 innings in 11 matches at an average of 11.89. His highest score is 47, also against Guyana.
Even though he has been called up by the West Indies selectors to play in a limited overs competition, Brown has taken just a mere three wickets at an average of 56.00 runs apiece with his right-arm medium-fast bowling in six Red Stripe Bowl one-day matches.
His best bowling figures were two for 28 in his debut match against Barbados in 2000 while he has scored a mere 56 runs in five innings at an average of 10.80.
Before taking the field for his first match in the Bowl last year, Brown had been selected in the Trinidad and Tobago's final eleven for a regional one-day match against Canada in Anguilla (1999) but rain forced the match to be abandoned before the toss was made.
Brown surprisingly won selection ahead of two other all-rounders in the Caribbean - Barbadian Ian Bradshaw and Antiguan Wilden Cornwall - who have more impressive records at both the one-day and first-class level.
A third all-rounder Carl Tuckett is recuperating from injury after missing this year's Red Stripe Bowl.
Also arriving with Brown was attacking middle order batsman Ricardo Powell, who replaces opener Leon Garrick.
Garrick returned to the Caribbean last Thursday on the advice of a medical doctor here who examined the diminutive right-hander an detected a heart problem.
