Haynes worried over Windies World Cup chances

The 49-year-old Haynes, who looked as fit as he was during his lengthy career for both Barbados and the Windies, said: "I’m worried about the overall picture for West Indies cricket."

"And I’m saying you’ve got 2007, which is going to be upon us very quickly. I just want to know what are we doing to prepare our team to be ready for the 2007 World Cup."

Haynes who is now secretary of the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA), inquired: "Are we playing a lot of one-day competitions? Are we going to be involved in a lot of one-day tournaments so that our players would be very equipped in the one-day (version)? What are we doing?"

"I’m asking a lot of questions and I just feel that what we should be doing now is focusing a little bit more on the development of West Indies cricket." He continued: "And, to me, I find that in the development of West Indies cricket, the players are going to be very important."

From 1978 to 1994, Haynes amassed 7,487 runs at an average of 42.29 in 116 Test matches as well as 8,648 runs at 41.37 in 238 one-day internationals.

The approachable Bar-badian noted: "What you want to do is be able to say (that) we do have now a cadre of players, be it 40 or 50, that are capable of playing a very good one-day game and some who can go on to be future Test cricketers.

"And what we need to do is (for) 2007, we should be playing a lot more one-day cricket."

Looking directly at the World Cup, the former Barbados and West Indies captain said: "We should be looking at getting into (the) final.

"Instead, a lot of countries in the Caribbean are only interested in infrastructure than the whole development of our cricket," he added.

"We need to have a group of cricketers who could compete in 2007 and bring home the World Cup to the Caribbean."

Haynes, who also served as a Senator in the Barbados Parliament, stated that he will not be actively involved in the World Cup process, especially at such short notice.

But he is still keen on the regional game, a decade after ending his first-class career.

Concerning the current Digicel Test series between West Indies and South Africa, Haynes said: "It’s a bit unfortunate that we lost the Second Test but I’ll still think that you’ve got to give (credit to) Brian (Lara) who played a fantastic innings under a lot of pressure, and (Ramnaresh) Sarwan in the second innings."

Haynes was in Trinidad for the second annual Cotton Tree Foundation Charity Golf tournament at St Andrew’s Golf Course in Moka, Maraval.