Tag Archives: Earl Best

A cricket match, a very wise man once wrote, is played in the minds of the opposing captains. The leader’s performance between the two sets of stumps may well contribute to the eventual outcome of any given match. But if he fails to perform consistently between the ears, his team …

Like the archer’s arrow into the flame cauldron at the Barcelona Olympics, it sailed out into the arena from beneath the old wooden scoreboard at the Queen’s Park Oval. It’s a Shell Shield game. Inshan Ali, the left-arm unorthodox spinner who first made the national team as a teenager, has …

Until David Rudder came along to fill our hearts and minds with his inspirational repertoire, Ah Fraid Karl ranked up there with the best. And Ah Put on Mih Guns Again was among my top dozen favourite calypsoes. So having long recognised his worth as a calypsonian, I have no …

Education kills … by degrees! That graffito leapt off the walls of the London Underground at me about half a century ago. And stayed with me. Last weekend’s Sunday Express brought it back to the front of my mind. And reminded me as well of this idea, long espoused by …

“[…] His departure was both sudden and unexpected. One could say it was in his nature. The only person who could truly say they knew Dad’s movements […] was his travel agent…” The following Letter to the Editor on the passing of former Trinidad and Tobago cricketer Sheldon Gomes—a former …

Why did satisfying [Terry] Fenwick and [Peter] Miller matter so much to Mr [William] Wallace? That is the intriguing question posed by Wired868 reader Louis Carrington to which I am seeking to offer an answer. Three more reminders: (1) This is opinion, not reportage. For my facts, I rely essentially …

When I told Sheldon Anthony Gomes that Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards had reminded me of him, his response was immediate. “He as good as you?” I had asked in jest. “Nah, skip,” he responded, “ten times better—at least!” Richards had singlehandedly run out three Australian batsmen in the 1975 World …

David John-Williams is standing on the par-5 fifth tee at the golf course at Savonetta, addressing his tee ball with his driver.  Investigative notes in hand, Mark Bassant ‘ambushes’ him. “Is your middle name Apullnaris?” he asks. Startled, the ex-president blocks his shot. “Right!” he yells. Bassant did not need …

The beauty of art, it has been said, is the concealment of art; England’s right-handed middle-order batsman Mike Gatting and left-handed opener Andrew Strauss are certain to agree. Neither saw the threat Australia’s artful Shane Warne posed to his continued survival until it was too late. The first lost his …

“A Worrell innings knows no dawn. It begins at high noon!” “He never played an ungrammatical stroke.” Those two sentences describing the batting of the West Indies greatest ever captain Sir Frank Worrell were penned by Neville Cardus, the doyen of English cricket writers. “Clive Lloyd.” That, so the story …

Dear David, It appeared not in a Panamanian newspaper but many years ago in Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Granma. Cuando el pueblo se enfada, toda la injusticia tiembla. You speak a little Spanish, don’t you? Not a word? Small ting. It says this: When the man-in-the-street says enough is enough, all …

Wired868’s Lasana Liburd is far and away the best football reporter in Trinidad and Tobago, arguably in the West Indies. So if any proof were needed that the current protracted TTFA vs FIFA issue is not about football, it came on CNC3 last night. I am sure Liburd and Wired …