Columnist Earl Best concludes his series on legendary West Indies and Trinidad and Tobago batsman Brian Lara with an imagined interview with the Prince of Port-of-Spain: Earl Best (EB): Shane Warne calls some of Sachin Tendulkar innings “pretty amazing” and calls some of yours “unbelievable.” “I think if you wanted …
Read More »BC Lara’s Great GOAT Debate: In the castle of the Prince of Port-of-Spain’s half-century skin and inside his head
More than 80 times in his stellar 17-year cricketing career, Brian Charles Lara, Prince of Port-of-Spain, reached 50 runs; today, however, for the first time in his life, he’s reached 50 years. Cricketing 50s are oft-achieved; even for a Prince, a lifetime 50 is unique—in the pristine sense of that …
Read More »Dear Editor: Best is wrong, stats suggest Kamla CAN deliver promised 50,000 jobs to T&T
“This is not a personal attack on my erstwhile journalist/teacher friend, Earl [Best]. It is meant as a critique of his un-researched commentary. “From what one can discern, Earl has an obvious personal issue with Kamla’s declared intent on creating 50,000 jobs, if she becomes PM. On the surface, one …
Read More »Best sees WI World Cup squad as not looking world-class but asks: Who we go put?
Twok! Twok! Twok! Twok! Four remarkable, meaty blows that sent Ben Stokes’ balls sailing over the boundary and unexpectedly won the 2016 T20 World Cup for West Indies. So, heeding Ian Bishop’s order, I have remembered the name Carlos Brathwaite. Likewise, clearly, the selectors. Three years after that unforgettable April …
Read More »BC Lara’s Great GOAT Debate: Superblue’s slapdash Signal to Prince of POS; calypso let WI cricket down
“A man hit a ball in Antigua,” we all remember Superblue singing in 1995, “and it end up in Trinidad on the Promenade, Lara Promenade.” “The ball cross over rivers and seas,” he adds, “in the sky of the West Indies; the ball whistling through the trees like a joyful …
Read More »BC Lara’s great GOAT debate: St John’s(x)2, sobering up Sydney and stunning Edgbaston
Antigua, 375, April 1994 & 400, April 2004: Scaling Everest… because it is there “Awesome.” For Geoffrey Boycott, the former England opener, a single word suffices. “Amazing,” Ian Botham concurs. “One helluva innings.” “[I]ncredible physical stamina,” gushes David “Bumble” Lloyd, “a beautiful technical innings. Memorable. Magnificent.” It is April 2004, …
Read More »BC Lara’s Great GOAT Debate: Sachin statistical score settled, Bradman left a little bit behind?
“In all,” observes Jon Hotten in The Meaning of Cricket, “he faced 19, 753 balls in Test cricket and another 13,086 in one-day internationals before he retired in 2007. Only 483 of those resulted in his dismissal, so 32,356 did not. “Put differently, just 1.47 per cent of the deliveries …
Read More »Best revisits BC Lara’s Great GOAT Debate: The Don, Sachin T or me?
“A man of genius,” CLR James says, in writing of Garry Sobers, “is what he is, he cannot be something else and remain what he is.” There is another West Indian left-hander, born a generation after Sobers on May 2, 1969, to whom James’ encomium applies unadjusted. Superlatives abound in …
Read More »Music to WI ears: the Fat Lady prepares to sing for Windies coach, Richard Pybus
It didn’t take long, did it? Mouth open and ’tory jump out. Not one mouth, four mouth—not counting Dr Ralph Gonsalves who mouth cyar stay close when is West Indies cricket people talking bout. So first, it was Phil Simmons, who has never felt he wasn’t free to speak his …
Read More »An open letter to ex-CWI president: Thanks but no thanks, Mr Cameron; forget I’ll-be-back talk
“You may not think there is anything wrong with all of that,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff repeatedly told the Republican members of his committee earlier this week, “but I do.” “All of that” is a longish, itemised list of some of the most egregious actions—not to say ‘crimes’—already …
Read More »What ‘set up’?! Best counters Wattley’s claim of treachery in Skerritt’s CWI triumph
Newly elected Cricket West Indies President Ricky Skerritt is under no illusions about the pace at which he will be able to effect change. But is that what he should be worried about? Might there not be other, more pressing concerns that should give him pause? If Garth Wattley is …
Read More »Cricket elections: Cameron dictates CWI pace, says Skerritt, but he’s no dictator
Cricket West Indies President Whycliffe Dave Cameron is not a dictator. He would arguably like to be a dictator and probably even sees himself as a dictator. But, according to former West Indies team manager Ricky Skerritt, Cameron is NOT a dictator. That is what the CWI presidential hopeful told …
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