Clive Llyod: No victimisation

Clive Lloyd, the legendary West Indian Cricket captain and current chairman of selectors has defended the non-selection of Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard to the West Indies World Cup side.

Speaking on the Sportsmax Zone Monday, Llyod said the omission of the two Trinidadian cricketers was not victimization.

Asked if he was given a directive not to choose the T&T all-rounders, Lloyd said he spoke to nobody.

"Let people understand that we have been at the bottom rung of the ladder for the last eight years or more with the same players, recycling people all the time," Lloyd said. "The point is that now we tried to see if we can change things. It is obvious picking a West Indies team is not easy. If you look at the stats of our players, they are not wonderful so we will be picking players averaging 20, 25, some even 19...We starting from scratch," he added.

He added: "There was two days of discussions with the three others selectors and the captain and there were very strong arguments for the players (Bravo and Pollard) and we came out with what we though was a pretty good team.

"It was not easy to leave out those two guys. It is a discussion that went on and one and on and in the end we thought that we have so many all-rounders. We were trying to see if we can introduce some new faces and as far as I am concerned I think we have a good all-round one-day side.

"It is not a situation where these guys have been wiped away. They have a chance at playing for the West Indies again. We have a new captain and hopefully he will get the support that is needed and we can put in a very good performance.

"We think that it is important that we have a settled side. I have no axe to grind, I don't dislike anybody. We want the best for the West Indies.

"It is going to take some doing because we don't have a great set of players to choose from. What we have is some good young players coming through from the Under-19 and we will reward them when they do well.

"We are trying to get West Indies cricket from the bottom rung of the ladder to move further up," said Lloyd.