By RON FANFAIR
Former West Indies fast bowler Anderson Cummins, who is best known for a match in which he did not play, will make a guest appearance in the one-day festival series next weekend that will be used as trials to select the national team to take part in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Trophy tournament for Associates in Ireland in July.
Barbadian cricket fans boycotted South Africa's first Test in the Caribbean in 1992 when Antiguan Kenny Benjamin was selected ahead of Cummins who represented the West Indies in five Tests and 63 One-day internationals from 1988-1996.
Cummins, who also played for English counties Durham and Surrey, moved to Canada in the mid-1990s and represented Cavaliers in the Toronto & District Cricket Association (TDCA) premier league for a few seasons.
The 39-year-old Cummins will turn out for the Canadian Cricket Association's (CCA) President's XI that will oppose an Ontario Cricket Association's (OCA) President's XI in the three 60-overs games to be played at King City between May 21 and 23.
With the exception of middle-order batsman Ian Billcliff, the entire 30-member squad named to take part in training will participate in the festival. Billcliff, who is based in Auckland, New Zealand, will join the national team in England.
Ex-Sri Lanka wicketkeeper/batsman Pubudu Dassanayake and national skipper John Davison will lead the CCA squad that also includes Iain Dixon, Chana Kularantna, Sajeeve Fernando, Haninder Dhillon and Kevin Sandher (British Columbia); Suresh Jayaram (Manitoba); Ashish Patel (Quebec) and Zubin Surkari, Umar Bhatti, Jason Patraj, Andrew Chatterpaul, Sanjayan Thuraisingham and Anderson Cummins of Ontario.
Mike Henry and Rupert Gomes are the manager and coach respectively while Irishman Colin Siller and Derek Perera are the specialist coach and analyst correspondingly.
Former Barbados youth skipper George Codrington and Ishwar Maraj, who captained Canada in the 2003 Red Stripe Caribbean One-day tournament, will skipper the OCA squad. The other players in the line-up are Manzoor Chaudhary, Salmon Chaudhary, Jacob Ramkelwan, Sumit Thapliyal and Amjad Shehzad (Alberta) and Desmond Chumney, Nicholas Ifill, Asif Mulla, Sunil Dhaniram, Arjune Nandu, Zahid Hussain. Henry Osinde and Don Maxwell.
OCA president Errol Townshend is the manager/head coach while Kris Sawh is the assistant manager. George Heron is the assistant coach/trainer and Lennox Cooper is the analyst.
The matches start at 10 a.m. each day.