History, they say, is written by the victors. For just over a week, we still enjoy the title of defending T20 World Cup champions. Let us, therefore, while we still can, rewrite history. Not, like Christopher Columbus and the Spaniards and all the self-serving colonial powers, with a view to …
Read More »T2021 W/C: If the ‘Boss’ could play, why not the Prince? Why Lara was, inadvertently, right about Gayle
It is an intriguing idea. But I reject it. Out of hand. There is, as the Americans, no there there, dear. Writing in April 2007, just before Brian Lara’s final white ball game for the West Indies in the World Cup of that year, under the headline ‘The last king …
Read More »T2021 W/C: Lara’s peculiar choice: is Prince of PoS putting Gayle part before WI whole?
I do NOT know if Mark Nicholas is the racist I believe him to be. It matters not to me today. I do NOT know if Quinton de Kock is the racist I do NOT believe him to be. It matters not to me today. Neither man’s issue matters to …
Read More »T2021 W/C: S/African hypocrisy? WI put eggs in one basket and retain un-Chase batting line-up
If Mark Nicholas, of these West Indians ‘have no brains’ fame, were an active cricketer representing one of the teams in the 2021 T20 World Cup, I feel certain he would have no problem taking a knee. Quinton de Kock does. He declined to comply with the South Africa Cricket …
Read More »T2021 W/C: Is West Indian mindlessness a mere figment of Mark Nicholas’ imagination?
Tuesday morning in the Caribbean. South Africa are on the verge of victory in the second of the West Indies five Super 12 games in the 2021 World Cup. England’s Mark Nicholas is saluting the pair at the wicket, whose 83-run partnership will soon steer the Proteas to their crushing …
Read More »T2021 W/C: Are Pollard’s men finally ready to change the tune, after ‘collapso’ mess?
At 25 for 1 in the fourth over of England’s pursuit of 55 in the West Indies’ opening match of the 2021 T20 World Cup campaign, Win Predictor gave Kieron Pollard’s side a 1% chance of victory. On commentary on television at the time, former England captain Michael Atherton questioned …
Read More »T2021 W/C: If WI ever needed you is now; Pooran makes Best change his tune
October, which sees the start of the 2021 T20 Cricket World Cup, is also Calypso History Month. So it makes sense to me, if we are going to be clear about what this is all about, to allow David Rudder to tell us. In his ‘Rally’, he has found just …
Read More »T2021 W/C: Pressure does buss pipe; Best considers the strain on Pollard’s troops
Today, I want to return to the subject of Chris Gayle’s angry public reaction to perceived provocation by Curtly Ambrose. Obliquely, not frontally. I want to suggest that, heated though it was, it may well conceal a submerged iceberg. We might properly begin with West Indian royalty. But it seems …
Read More »Under pressure: Best looks at Viv’s measured approach to Gayle’s ‘Ambi’ swipe
A guilty conscience, those who grew up in Trinidad in the second half of the 20th century would often have heard, needs no accuser. Christopher Henry ‘Scrempy’ Gayle grew up in Kingston, Jamaica in the second half of the second half of the last century. But he probably heard it …
Read More »T2021 W/C: Simmons’ bonding concern, body blows and bruised egos, as WI prepare for T20 title defence
“Dive, boy, dive!” Many of the details which were reported here on Wired868 at the time escape me now. But who can forget Dwayne Bravo’s ringing exhortation to his younger brother to give 100%? Or forget the exasperated four-letter word that subsequently came through the stump mike when Darren Bravo …
Read More »T2021 W/C: Narine shows what WI will miss as post-CPL lessons continue in IPL play-offs
It would not be accurate to say that West Indies off-spinner Sunil Narine almost single-handedly put the Kolkata Knight Riders into the IPL semi-final on Monday. Why? Because accuracy requires that we say ‘former West Indies off-spinner Sunil Narine’. Mr Roger Harper and his selection panel were well aware that, …
Read More »Best: Picking sense out of MoH nonsense; Dr Fuad Khan’s broadside at Piarco Covid system
“This makes no sense,” Dr Fuad Khan thunders at one point in his latest online sermon. “Whoever did this system is a dunce! Is time to get rid ah dese fools in the Ministry of Health.” It’s not easy to decide which set of fools is more wearisome, harder to …
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