Sarwan

BRIDGETOWN (CMC):

Ramnaresh Sarwan says he is not worried over whether he or Chris Gayle is the West Indies captain as he steps up his bid to return to international cricket soon and produce consistently.

Speaking to reporters this week in Barbados, after Guyana lost by an innings and 57 runs to the home side in their second-round Carib Beer series match, Sarwan suggested that resuming his international career is his main priority right now, even ahead of reclaiming the West Indies captaincy.

"It doesn't really matter whether I am captain or not, or whether Chris is captain," Sarwan said. "I just want to start back playing inter-national cricket and performing consistently, trying to assist the team in the best way I can."

Excellent form

Dogged by one injury or another in the past couple of years and, even more telling, since he was appointed captain for the tour to England in 2007 following Brian Lara's retirement, experienced middle-order batsman Sarwan has not played a Test match in eight months.

Since returning to competitive cricket as captain of Guyana in the 2008 Carib Beer Cup championship, the 27-year-old Sarwan has been in excellent form with the bat, amassing the highest overall aggregate of 305 runs including one century and three half-centuries at an average of 101.66 after the first two rounds of matches.

'Hope to be better'

"It's coming around okay. It's pretty steady. It's coming on slowly but surely. It is just that I am a bit disappointed that I am not at a stage where I want to be, where I can compete at the inter-national level.

"Today (Monday), I was getting a bit of pain in it so I kind of started very slowly and after lunch it was feeling a bit sore. It's just a matter of me managing it properly.

"I am just hoping that in two weeks time I should be fitter and be able to compete at the highest level," said Sarwan, a veteran of 67 Tests and 124 one-day internationals.