CAS­TRIES, Saint Lu­cia – De­spite hav­ing not played a Test match for the West In­dies in over three years, vet­er­an crick­et com­men­ta­tor Joseph ‘Reds’ Per­reira be­lieves that ODI and T20 cap­tain Shai Hope is the best man to cap­tain the Test team.

Per­reira, who has been com­men­tat­ing for over five decades, said with Daren Sam­my ap­point­ed as all-for­mat head coach, it would make sense for Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) to fol­low the same route with the cap­tain­cy.

For­mer cap­tain Kraigg Brath­waite stepped down from the role of Test cap­tain last week, with CWI yet to name his re­place­ment.

The 31-year-old Hope was re­cent­ly ap­point­ed cap­tain of the T20 side, tak­ing over from Rov­man Pow­ell.

How­ev­er, he last played a Test match for the West In­dies in 2021 against Sri Lan­ka.

Speak­ing as part of a Sports Re­porter Round Ta­ble re­cent­ly, Per­reira said Hope was the best can­di­date in the cir­cum­stances.

“Through­out the Caribbean, peo­ple have been try­ing to work out who may be the best per­son to ap­point as the red-ball cap­tain.

“My own feel­ing is, keep it sim­ple. If you have an all-for­mat coach in Daren Sam­my, both white-ball and red-ball, sim­pli­fy it. Ask Hope to al­so be your Test cap­tain. I think it will work in uni­son with the coach, I think it will work nice­ly with [di­rec­tor of crick­et] Miles Bas­combe,” Per­reira said.

“Hope is high­ly re­spect­ed, he’s an ul­ti­mate pro. He goes about his life in a very or­der­ly way, no ro­ro sto­ries about him, and I think that he will make an ex­cel­lent cap­tain, and he will be a long-term cap­tain, be­cause he’s young enough.”

How­ev­er, Per­reira said Hope, who has played 38 Test match­es and scored 1726 runs with two cen­turies and five half cen­turies at an av­er­age of 25.01, would have to sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove those sta­tis­tics.

“I will al­so say that he will have to im­prove his Test record.

“He start­ed bril­liant­ly. One can al­ways re­mem­ber him at Head­in­g­ley, he and Brath­waite in that part­ner­ship that helped to beat Eng­land, but he will know that he will have to push up that Test av­er­age in­to the mid­dle 30s,” Per­reira main­tained.

CMC