By Tony Becca - From The Boundary 
JAMAICA'S PREPARATION for next month's regional Red Stripe Bowl cricket tournament is underway and although 28 players are involved, although each and every one of them is trying to get into it, as far as the selection of the team is concerned, it should be easy for the selectors.
Under normal circumstances, with so much young talent around, good performances would make it difficult for the selectors.
Unfortunately for players like batsmen Donovan Pagon, Maurice Kepple, Shawn Findlay and Tamar Lambert, however, for pace bowlers like Andrew Richardson, Dwight Washington, Vinard Woolcock and Krishmar Santokie, and for wicketkeepers Keith Hibbert and Matthew Sinclair, that will not be the case.
But for one of them, maybe for two of them, as far as the 2003 Bowl is concerned, their participation in the preparation will be an exercise in futility. Barring injury to others, the odds are against them - regardless of how well, how brilliantly they perform.
The reason is simple. Nine players - Christopher Gayle, Wavell Hinds, Marlon Samuels, Ricardo Powell, Gareth Breese, David Bernard Jnr., Carlton Baugh Jnr., Daren Powell and Jerome Taylor are current West Indies players; and on top of that, there is the young, talented Brenton Parchment who performed quite well when afforded the opportunity last year.
That leaves only one place - and only if Robert Samuels, a former West Indies player, is not returned as the captain.
As far as some fans and some members of the board are concerned, Robert Samuels should not be returned as captain. According to them, the time has come to appoint a new captain - to look at the West Indies team and to "blood" one of the West Indies players in the team.
Unless leadership is unimportant, that, however, is not the way to go; and in cricket, leadership is important - very important.
The way to go is to select the best man for the job, and unless the board members, many of whom have been lamenting the lack of leadership skills by captains at all levels of the game, many of whom have been talking about the need to encourage good leadership, believe that leadership is not important, unless they are convinced that Robert Samuels is not the best man for the job, they should return him as captain.
SAMUELS HAS MATURED
There was a time when Robert Samuels should have been replaced as the captain and there are times when his field placing deserves to be questioned. There is no question, however, that he has matured, that he is better now than he was a few years ago, and to remove him when he is better than he was, to remove him when there is no obvious choice, to remove him simply to put in a younger man and not a better man would be a retrograde step.
It would be a move that would send the wrong signal. It would be telling young players that captaincy, leadership, is not important, and remembering that among those who are being touted to take over are a few players who have been exposed as captains at trial and practice matches, as captains of Jamaica XIs in friendly matches and who were disappointing, depending on who gets the job, it would also be telling him that leadership is not important.
Leadership, however, is important, those who know best are those constantly around the players and the players themselves, and that is why the selectors, including the manager of the team, have recommended that Robert Samuels continues as the captain, and why the players, including the young ones, want him to continue as the captain - even if, at 32, he is no longer as good a batsman as he used to be, no longer as good a fielder as he used to be.
