While sharing what he called a ‘left-field’ idea for Indian cricket Deep Dasgupta told ESPN Cricinfo, “Bottom line is there is potential, there is talent coming through in red-ball cricket. We’ve seen the younger lot come through, but to make the West Indies Test team a success or competitive, what they really need to do is play more and more of this format.”

Explaining his point further Deep Dasgupta said it is about providing the West Indies with the opportunities to play as many Test matches as possible and this thing can only move further with the approval of the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI).

“Ideally you want them to play as many Test matches as possible, against competitive sides, the top 4-5 sides, but at times that’s not possible or practical. That leads to me a left-field idea, which is if West Indies Cricket can identify a few players and BCCI agrees to allow these players to play first-class cricket here in India,” said the former Bengal player,” Dasgupta added.

“It happens for a couple of months, October-November, West Indies can release 4-5 of the youngsters like McKenzie and Alick and a few of their predominantly red ball bowlers. In India we have 38 First-class sides, we can easily absorb 4-5-6 players like that, which could be a great help to West Indies cricket and make them more competitive,” he said.

Far-fetched ideas 

The idea is surely interesting but seems very far-fetched as the BCCI is going to be very busy in the next few months as India is hosting the grand ICC World Cup 2023. Team India is also busy with back-to-back tournaments and bilateral series with many countries.

Notably, Indian domestic cricket has played a pivotal role in boosting the popularity of many West Indies players like Dwayne Bravo, Keiron Pollard, and Chris Gayle and the emerging stars may get a chance to prove themselves in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Updated: 26 Jul 2023, 06:59 PM IST