00:00Roston Chase has 49 Test matches under his belt with 2,265 runs at an average of 26.33, while as a bowler he has 85 wickets.
00:11The last time Chase played for the West Indies was in March 2023 against host South Africa.
00:17Appointing him as West Indies Test captain ahead of the three match series against Australia in the Caribbean is a big surprise for cricket analyst Fazir Mohamed.
00:24A big surprise in many ways even though of course he would have been established in the West Indies team for quite some time.
00:30But he hasn't played Test cricket for at least two years and whether or not he's actually worth his place in the team is going to be a discussion in itself.
00:38But again they've come up with the name of Roston Chase and with Jomel Warikun as the vice captain as well.
00:44He says Chase at 33 has a chance to captain for a long time once he performs well and more importantly gets good results.
00:52Mohamed says by no means is it going to be easy for the Barbadian who leads the men in Maroon against the Aussies from June 25th in his backyard the Kensington Oval.
01:01We now have a situation of a new captain taking on the most powerful team in the world consistently and that's Australia of course who have just beaten India in their series in Australia and reinforced their status even as they head into a World Test Championship final.
01:18Certainly for Roston Chase it's going to be a daunting challenge and again let's not be under any illusions as to the challenge that he will face taking on Australia in just a few short weeks.
01:30The Trinidad based cricket analyst says regardless of the strategies the West Indies may come up with they have been struggling for close to three decades.
01:38He says the Caribbean cricketers are going to face a tough examination against the baggy green.
01:43Can Roston Chase make a difference? As captain we'll have to wait and see.
01:48The history says no because again we've had so many captains over the last 25 years.
01:54Brian Lara, Jimmy Adams, Shiv Narayan Chandapal, Carl Hooper, Jason Holder and so many other names.
02:00Craig Brathwood the last man who held the job were able to get a few victories here and there but in the end it was generally a situation where the Western East were losing far more than winning.
02:11And certainly against Australia as well even though the last time they would have met famously the Western East won in Brisbane in January of 2024.
02:20In other words, Mohamed feels it makes no difference if the Western East still had Craig Brathwaite or the newly appointed Chase or even Joshua De Silva or Tevin Imlac.
02:30And what about Shea Hope?
02:32There was a lot of talk about Shea Hope being an option but at the end of it all he decided for himself that he really wanted to focus on his own individual.
02:40on his own individual development as a batsman and indeed as a captain in the wide ball format.
02:46Whether or not he would have even been making the team in the test match format remains debatable because his test match record,
02:53saving a part for that purple patch in the middle of 2017, is poor.
02:58According to Mohamed, this appointment boils down to the state of Western East cricket, saying they have struggled in all areas,
03:04whether it's leadership, whether it's with the coaches or even the administration.
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