The Barbadian pacer on the brink of West Indies selection

When Akeem Jordan was named in the Barbados Pride squad for this season’s edition of the Super50 cup, it immediately brought back memories of 2018 when Akeem bowled a spell of 5-4 against Trinidad and Tobago for the Combined Colleges (finishing with figures of 5-18 from his ten overs).


The following year he took another 16 wickets at 21 in the Super50 Cup before making his debut for St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in the CPL taking 4-33 against the St Lucia Zouks. His 2018-2019 form saw him selected for West Indies A and board representative sides before the pandemic curtailed his career.

However his form in the 2021 Super 50 Barbados trials has seen him finally selected for the national side with regional eyes keen to see if he can complete a hat-trick of stella returns.

I first met Akeem Jordan in 2014 when he joined Slinfold Cricket Club as our overseas player. For context, Slinfold is a village outside of Horsham, West Sussex. Akeem had met a member of our club whilst he was on holiday in Barbados.

Naturally we had no idea what to expect from the 19 year old pace bowler ‘who could bat a bit’ but when he scored 51 not out on debut against Horsham (who were four leagues above us) featuring an attack thar included the likes of Will Beer (current Sussex leg-spinner), Michael Munday (former Somerset leg-spinner) and Kamau Leverock (Bermudian international), we knew we had secured a serious player.

Akeem proved to be a real performer on the pitch and a livewire off it. Akeem amassed 2266 runs across 4 seasons in the league at an average of 35.41. In this time, he recorded 11 half centuries and 3 centuries. However it was his bowling that was his strength – he took 204 league wickets for us, striking at 23.4 with an average of 12.92. He recorded 13 five wicket hauls in this time with a best of 7/22.

Those stats are just his Saturday performance, where Akeem really held value as an overseas was his commitment to the club. He would win games for us on a Saturday and turn out on a Sunday to help develop young players and dig us out of trouble and make games competitive.

Often choosing to keep wicket and walk our young bowlers through lines and lengths to bowl his wider contribution was invaluable. If that wasn’t enough, he played a massive part in making the training as professional as he could.

Whilst Akeem achieved a promotion in his time at Slinfold, last year his fruits really came to labour as the club won a cup and league double with many of Akeem’s protégé’s playing a massive part.

When England won the World Cup in 2019 – George Dobell ran a story on Jofra Archer who had represented a tour team called the ‘Two Hopes’ with Akeem. The story was set in 2016 just weeks before Archer’s first class debut against Pakistan where Akeem arranged for Jofra to stay with him. Akeem’s kindness and hospitality was rewarded when Jofra showed the world what he could do and the rest is history.

The generosity gives you an insight into what Akeem is like a person, a big heart and willing to do anything for his team mates. It’s for this reason I feel a huge amount of pride every time something significant happens in his career.

Representing Barbados will be a hugely proud moment for him, just as it was when he represented West Indies A. I say this because I’ve seen first hand his fierce loyalty to the clubs he has represented, he never left Slinfold despite better offers and bored me with how good his home team, Wildly CC were because they had a middle order of him, Jofra and Carlos Brathwaite.

On a more serious note though, this opportunity is well deserved because Akeem has made a lot of sacrifice and been extremely patient to get to this stage. If Barbados benefit from the same impact that Akeem has had at various points in his career, I think the WIndies domestic scene will have a proper pace bowler on their hands.