Kraigg Brathwaite’s eighth-ranked West Indies now look more likely to go on to lose the series against seventh-rated Dimuth Karunaratne’s Sri Lanka than to win it. And whether or not they do, some serious questions have to be asked of lead selector Roger Harper and his panel. And answered, one …
Read More »West Indian winning, winners and madness of persistent perversity; Best changes for 2nd Test
A winning team. You could safely describe Clive Lloyd’s late Seventies and early Eighties West Indies team thus. Perhaps the tag is also applicable to Vivian Richards’ 1980/90s team which indisputably had what their skipper called ‘the winning habit’. A team that won. That tag befits Kraigg Brathwaite’s second-string side …
Read More »Media Monitor: Holding forth forever; will WASA main leak Badree please shut up!
“In the air… and out!” That’s Richie Benaud, the Voice of Cricket, describing a dismissal. Yeah, describing. Five words. More than enough. He is, you see, on television. The name Jimmy Magee probably does not ring too many bells. But he outdid Benaud. That came during Diego Maradona’s magical half-the-field-run-and-score …
Read More »Chasing rainbows; wind in WI ODI sails as long trip to India 2023 begins
WI are rounding the corner. But don’t start celebrating just yet. We are heading to Toco; the corner we are just rounding is Icacos Point. Like in the bad old days of the Middle Passage, we are in a row boat. Going east. Against the tide. There is good news, …
Read More »The Good, the Bad and the Polly; why Harper chose Kraigg Brathwaite
God alone knows what Roger Harper’s proclivities are as far as religion and politics go. There are, however, enough clues around, I submit, for West Indies fans to reach tentative conclusions about how the CWI lead selector’s cricketing mind works. Faith, says the Good Book, is the substance of things …
Read More »Beneath the surface; Baksh takes Best back in time and leaves him bleeding inside
Not unlike Shadow’s Bassman, Mystic Prowler in mih head, pleading with people to look beneath the surface. I have just read Vaneisa Baksh’s ‘Sins of the Father’ column. And not for the first time, I have told myself I’m not going to read her stuff. Not for the first time, …
Read More »Media Monitor: Pros too have off days; a yes-we-Khan turn-on for Mr Live Wire?
The Frequently Found Foreign Names list is a problem for voice and vision journalists in T&T. In one of these columns last month, I tried to shine a light on its importance. Not so long ago, Wired868 editor Lasana Liburd was part of a seminar discussing challenges for the media …
Read More »Small margins, big hits, near misses, close calls and the trick S/Lanka spin played on WI
Outskilled! Thus did England Test captain Joe Root sum up the reason for his team’s 1-3 defeat in the recently concluded four-Test series at the hands of Virat Kohli’s India. West Indies white ball captain Kieron Pollard, whose team eked out a narrow 2-1 victory over Angelo Mathews’ Sri Lanka …
Read More »Media Monitor: Where have all the scholars gone? Should the Fourth Estate know the answer?
Two things happened this week to set me off on the path on which I am about to embark. The first, not in chronological order, was the passing of the Coalition Advocating for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (Caiso) head Colin Robinson, which occurred in the US on Thursday morning. Colin …
Read More »Best: Gayle forces his way back into T20 team; is tail wagging the West Indies dog?
Christopher Henry ‘Universe Boss’ Gayle, born 21 October 1979, contrived to pass a fitness test that Shimron Hetmyer, born 26 December 1997, failed—as did Barbadian all-rounder Roston Chase, 27, and Jamaican pacers Oshane Thomas, 23, and Sheldon Cottrell, 31. All four of those who failed have been active in the …
Read More »Media Monitor: Wasting time on Cameron, TV6’s dodgy maths and a testicular cock-up
Did anyone else react with a long, wet steups to the CNC3 sports news on Thursday night? Maybe steups are music to Ryan Bachoo’s ears. I cannot imagine any other reason why a young man who clearly works so hard at his craft would choose to bring us news off …
Read More »Pollard’s Reds attack with full force; toothless Jaguars prove easy game
Losing cricket teams have been out-thought, out-gunned, out-batted, out-bowled and generally out-played. But yesterday in the Super50 Cup final at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua, for the first time Kieron Pollard’s Red Force simply out-talented the Guyana Jaguars by 152 runs. The game was essentially over once Lendl Simmons …
Read More »