Lead West Indies Women selector Ann Browne-John said she and her fellow selectors are concerned that there is not a deep enough pool of women to choose from to replace non-performing players in the West Indies Women’s team.

It was an issue they had planned to begin addressing during the regional women’s and U19 tournaments that were cancelled earlier this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the recent five-match tour of England, the Caribbean women were swept 5-0 in a woefully lop-sided series. Only Deandra Dottin walked away with her head held high scoring 185 runs at an average of 37 over the five matches. She also bowled well despite nursing a sore shoulder.

No other batter made 100 runs during the series. Captain Stafanie Taylor with 78 runs was the only player to come close while Hayley Matthews was the next best having scored 38 runs, 21 of them coming in a single inning. Other than Dottin and Taylor, no other batter had a double-digit average, an area of great concern for Browne-John.

“Most definitely, and we have recognized that fact,” she said while speaking on Sportsnation Live on Nationwide Radio in Jamaica on Saturday night.

She indicated that this was a concern that the selectors had been discussing for some time and which they had planned to begin looking into with the regional tournaments this year.

“Unfortunately, we were not able to have a regional senior or U19 tournament this year but that is something we have discussed as selectors; that we now have to start looking for the next group of players, the group that would normally be like an ‘A’ team or an U19 team. So we have to start finding that group of players and start nurturing that group,” she said.

Brown-John said the selectors had hoped that there would have been a “vibrant” U19 tournament as there was supposed to be an U19 World Cup in early 2021. “So, we were looking towards that tournament to find some talent and we were also hoping for the regional tournament to look, particularly for batters because that is the area in which we are struggling most,” she said.

“It was also mentioned that we don’t have left-hand batters in our top order, we have to pick somebody who is left-handed and who is performing, so that is another consideration.”

The selectors were also hoping to unearth a specific type of bowler as well, the lead selector revealed.

“We have a great number of offspinners but we only have one leg spinner in Afy Fletcher, but we don’t have a large number of left-arm orthodox bowlers,” she said. “When we go out, every team we face we come up against left-arm orthodox. We have to look for that kind of player in the Caribbean.”