Former West Indies fastbowler set to represent Canada

Cummins returns to 'roots'

Roger Seepersad

March 3, 2007

'It feels like home': Anderson Cummins on his arrival in Trinidad © Getty Images

It is a return to the roots for Anderson Cummins, former West Indies fastbowler, who is set to represent Canada in the ICC World Cup later this month.

"It feels like home" said a comfortable Cummins who arrived at the Piarco International airport at Trinidad with the Canadian contingent on Thursday night after a short stint in Antigua earlier this week, where they were part of a tri-nations series with Bangladesh and Bermuda.

The Barbados-born Cummins played for the West Indies team in the 1996 World Cup in but has been living in Canada for the last 11 years.

Cummins played 63 one-day international matches for the West Indies, scoring 478 runs and taking 78 wickets, including 12 wickets at the 1992 tournament. He is however best remembered for his omission from the West Indies team for the historic inaugural Test match against South Africa at the Kensington Oval, Barbados in 1992, which led to an unprecedented boycott of the match by the local fans. West Indies came out the victors in that encounter.

Canada suffered a tough loss to Bangladesh in the last game they played but the Canadian coach Andy Pick believes that the level of cricket played by Canada has been improving consistently since the last World Cup in 2003.

Commenting on their loss to Bangladesh, Pick said: "We were not too worried about losing to them. They are a Test playing nation; they have had four years of Test cricket, playing against some of the best players in the world and our guys are slightly in the same position they were in four years ago."

Pick added: "We have got a lot of cricketers who have performed admirably over the last 6-12 months, and we have got eight or nine players who, if they perform well on the day can be match winners for us."

John Davison, Canada's hard hitting captain, is one of the key players on the side but not the only one according to the Pick, who said it will be a total team effort from his men. "Our game plan is to focus on our cricket," Pick said. "We can control what we do and not what anybody else does. We will try to produce our best cricket and if it is not good enough, we can live with that and if it is, well that's just great."

Canada will play their first warm-up match on Tuesday against Pakistan at UWI SPEC, while their first World Cup fixture is on March 14 versus Kenya (Group C) at the Beausejour Stadium in St Lucia.

Canada Squad: John Davison (Captain), George Codrington (Vice Captain), Desmond Chumney, Sundeep Jyoti, Qaiser Ali, Don Maxwell, Abdool Samad, Kevin Sandhar, Henry Osinde, Austin Codrington, Ashish Bagai, Ashif Mulla, Sunil Dhaniram, Umar Bhatti, Anderson Cummins.

© Trinidad & Tobago Express

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Anderson Cummins

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Canada

West Indies