Ralph Gonsalves, an unconditional West Indies cricket supporter, has an important message for Cricket West Indies (CWI) president Dr Kishore Shallow. The Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister is unhappy with the way regional cricket is being managed. According to him, “the same bureaucratic, lifeless kind of administration” is …
Read More »Best: In Alzarri’s defence—WI pacer needs better captaincy, not anger management
Light! At last! As I watched an enthusiastic Alzarri Joseph (AJ) throw down short ball after short ball at Bangladesh’s Taskin Ahmed towards the end of Sunday’s post-tea session in the First Test in Antigua, that hard-to-stomach letter to the Wired868 editor came back to me. “I think this has …
Read More »Best: Close first-person encounters; when real calypsonians tell their own stories…
Shorty would be able to blame any negative feedback from Severe Licking on Baron. Or his informants, Bomber and Cypher. Gypsy’s troubles, however, are of his own making—in more than one sense! In his 1972 For Cane, the Little Black Boy singer complained that Ah really doh know how to …
Read More »Best: Insider women’s calypso stories and a sweet soca tale of a licking
Calypso has given us a handful of unforgettable female figures. There is, for example, Kitchener’s Flag Woman and Scrunter’s Woman on the Base, there is David Rudder’s Bahia Girl and Sparrow’s Winer Girl from Princes Town. Not one of those four has a name. But the women I want to …
Read More »Race and kaiso in the classroom: Kitchener’s ditty on little Black boys
Only a complete ignoramus! Or the kind of blindness that will not see! Tell me, how could even one person in Trinidad and Tobago actually entertain the thought that Aldwyn “Kitchener” Roberts might have been capable of such an abomination? Oh, what a country! In the days when Guy Harewood …
Read More »From Sparrow to Cro Cro to Machel: Best chronicles calypso controversies through the years
Emceeing the Revue Calypso Tent’s show in 1972, night after night, the Mighty Stalin introduced Kelvin Pope in the same way: “So, ladies and gentlemen, here without further ado is that four-king four-cup four car Duke.” Famously, of course, over the four years immediately preceding ’72, the Mighty Duke had …
Read More »RBCPL24: Are WI being served? Wired868 looks back at CPL24
“Yuh tink is so de ting does work?” Calypso History Month has just begun and the 2024 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL), the biggest party in sport, has just ended. How are they connected? Well, if you know where to look, you can find several through-lines. There’s no Lying …
Read More »RBCPL24: Feeling the fielding—how David Wiese leads Kings’ bowlers’ support staff
A cricket match, a cricket sage once wrote, is played in the minds of the opposing captains. Were he writing in the post-20th century T20 world and thus disposed to making the compulsory compromises imposed by today’s audience of e-literates, he might not have stopped there. But, I imagine him …
Read More »RBCPL24: Johnson Charles paces Kings into final; defending champs, GAW, try again on Friday
At 124 without loss in the 12th over of Qualifier 1 in the Republic Bank 2024 Caribbean Premier League (CPL), Faf du Plessis’ Saint Lucia Kings were sitting pretty. Du Plessis and Johnson Charles, SLK’s unchanged opening pair, had powered their way to a score that put them in position …
Read More »RBCPL24: Pooran bats lights out again but Royals send TKR home
Fresh from his stellar 101 against the Guyana Amazon Warriors in Match 30 of the Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL), Nicholas Pooran damblayed his impressive run-scoring form in the playoffs on Tuesday evening. But it was all in vain. Man-of-the-Match David Miller struck eight mighty blows, five of them …
Read More »RBCPL24: When Nortje chose David over Goliath and let TKR escape a Patriots licking
Sunday night at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba. With his side chasing a challenging 193 for victory, Trinbago’s Nicholas Pooran was swashbuckling his way to a possible third CPL century. And smiling like a Cheshire cat—even though he did not get to three figures by the end of …
Read More »RBCPL24: Pooran wins battle for TKR; but GAW edge war for top-two finish
In the splendid third CPL century he scored on Sunday evening, Nicholas Pooran got only one life. His 59-ball 101 put Trinbago Knight Riders on track to score a massive win over heavy favourites Guyana Amazon Warriors in Match 30 of the Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL) at Providence …
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