New W.I. cricket caps

Press, 12 February 1986, Page 32

New W.I. cricket caps

NZPA-AFP St John’s, Antigua The batsman, Carlisle Best, and the fast bowler, Patrick Patterson, have been named as the only two new players in a West Indies party of 13 for the first one-day international and first Test match against England this month.

Best, an aggressive right-handed batsman from Barbados, has forced his way into the party by scoring the most runs, 511, in the Shell Shield competition. Patterson, a massively built, tall Jamaican, sprung to prominence with his speed and hostility in the shield competition.

The Jamaican captain and West Indies vice-cap-tain, Michael Holding, rates Patterson as "very, very quick,” and only slightly below Malcolm Marshall, the West Indies strike bowler regarded as the fastest in the game. Best, aged 26, an economist, at the Barbados Central Bank, was also the leading scorer in the Shell Shield in 1985. He toured Sharjah and Pakistan with the West Indies team late last year but has not yet played a Test.

Patterson, aged 24, took 21 wickets in five Shell Shield matches this season. He has played for Tasmania and the English couSy side, Lancashire, in the last two years.

This is the first time he has been chosen for the West Indies and he takes the place of a fellow Jamaican fast • bowler, Courteney Walsh, who has been dropped although he took most wickets, 29, in the Shell Shield.

The first one-day international is scheduled for Sabina Park at Jamaica on February 18 and the first Test starts at the same venue on February 21.

The West Indies party is: I. V. A. Richards (captain), M. A. Holding (vice captain), D. L. Haynes, C. G. Greenidge, H. A. Gomes, R. B. Richardson, A. L. Logie, C. A. Best, M. D. Marshall, J. Gamer, B. P Pattern, R. A. Harper, P,|.