Tag Archives: Earl Best

Calypsonians are as cantankerous as they come. So when Relator suggests that Sir Garfield Sobers was no great shakes as a captain, we have to take that with a pinch of salt.  Yet it is there, on the record, in his 1972 hit “Gavaskar”. So we have to deal with …

Twenty-six centuries and 30 half-centuries.  That, according to the official record, is what the legendary left-handed batsman Garfield St Aubrun Sobers has produced for West Indies. But in Sobers’ mind, his record of achievement with the bat is seven 100s and nine 50s, less than half of what the record …

Born 86 years ago today on 28 July 1936, Garfield St Aubrun Sobers became simply, as Sparrow sang, “the greatest cricketer on Earth or Mars”. Hyperbole? Calypsonians, we know, are so prone. Still, it isn’t easy to dismiss the claim made by the Calypso King of the World on behalf …

I woke up one morning a few weeks ago to news that dulled the effulgence of the light that usually comes over a city like Madrid in early June. A message from my brother that Patrick White had died.  “At school when we were all students it seemed normal,” my …

One brilliant one-handed catch from former captain Jason Holder. Some 60-odd deliveries with the ball, eight of them from lead pacer Kemar Roach that yielded two wickets. Just about 30 deliveries with the bat, 21 of them yielding 20 runs for skipper Kraigg Brathwaite. That was all the West Indies …

At the Masters in Georgia, they call Saturday ‘moving day’. At the National Stadium in Grenada today, a masterly maiden Test century by wicketkeeper/batsman Joshua Da Silva first moved Kraigg Brathwaite’s West Indies into the saddle of the Third Apex Test. Then, with the first innings lead 93, allrounder Kyle …

Joshua Da Silva had a steely glint in his eye as he acknowledged the plaudits of the crowd on Day Two of the Third Apex Test at the National Stadium in Grenada today. The wicketkeeper scored a critical, unbeaten, rear-guard 54 to push Kraigg Brathwaite’s West Indies past the 204 …

For a session and a half on the opening day of the Third Apex Test at the National Stadium in Grenada today, Kraigg Brathwaite’s West Indies were firmly in the driver’s seat. But by the end of the day, with numbers 10 and 11 their top scorers, Joe Root’s side …

Led by another immense feat of endurance and concentration from skipper Kraigg Brathwaite, the West Indies earned a second honourable draw in the Second Test of the three-match Apex Series at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados today All three protagonists played their part to ensure that the predictable outcome was …

When West Indies vice-captain Jermaine Blackwood walked to the middle of Kensington Oval in Barbados in the Second Apex Test match against England today, his team was on 101 for 3, still 407 runs shy of avoiding the follow-on. When he departed some 68 overs later, West Indies were on …

After a battering by, above all, Ben Stokes in Bridgetown, Barbados today, Kraigg Brathwaite’s West Indies remained unbowed. And Brathwaite and Shamarh Brooks will resume the West Indian first innings in the Second Apex Test on Day Three tomorrow with one number uppermost in their minds: 308. That is the …

Had gun-shy West Indies skipper Kraigg Brathwaite decided to risk a review off the last ball of the 20th over in the Second Apex Test at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados today, England might have found themselves—not for the first time—in a spot of bother before lunch. He did not …