At a critical moment in the final Super Eights game, one of the team coaches left the pavilion and came to the boundary’s edge. Bangladesh looked well on course to get the 115 runs they needed to stop Afghanistan in their semifinal-bound tracks. One point is enough to make the …
Read More »Is it time for older WI fans to shelve purity preference in cricket formats?
If, in the Lloyd Best definition, limbo is finding space where there is none, the cultural artform had its best ever day on the international stage in Sydney in January of 1993. No matter how many policemen Aussie captain Allan Border placed in the area between point and wide long-off, …
Read More »Pooran not batting properly? Really?! Start watching T20 cricket with 21st Century eyes
Brian Lara says Nicholas Pooran should be playing Test cricket for the West Indies. Not everyone agrees. But no one doubts that the prolific, talented almost-30-year-old left-hander is the West Indies’ best T20 batsman. By far. Pooran, though, is under attack—directly and indirectly. And whether the criticisms constantly levelled at …
Read More »Can WI force England to take us seriously? Will Lara’s advice help?
In the lead-up to the First Test which ended at Lord’s last week, Brian Lara, a master of timing, reaffirmed his long-held position on the possibilities for West Indies cricket. “I still believe we have some of the best talents in the world,” the Guardian reports him as saying, “but …
Read More »T20WC24: Pooran gets his Chris Gayle groove on—better fete for WI
Nicholas Pooran does not have the bluster of Chris Gayle, the Universe Boss. Or his belligerence. Nor can he really claim to have outbatted his fellow left-hander in any of cricket’s three formats. But in the T20I universe, he has now overhauled a couple of the former West Indies opener’s …
Read More »T20WC24: Can Powell’s WI have new focus—will home advantage count?
Old enough to have been around when Kapil Dev ran halfway across Lord’s to pouch Viv Richards’ skier, I am scarred. Over four decades after that 1983 sinking of the West Indies’ Titanic, I remain a sceptic, at best a conservative believer in West Indies’ World Cup prowess. In hindsight, …
Read More »Open letter to Scyld Berry: does plucking feathers from Lara’s wing float your boat?
These growing feathers plucked from Lara’s wing Will make him fly an ordinary pitch. Who else would soar above the view of batsmen And keep them all in servile fearfulness? Dear Mr Scyld Berry, Beriberi, on the slave ships that sailed to the Caribbean, was not very kind to our …
Read More »Best: Fire in Babylon and fireworks under pressure—we love the way WI play
Bazball brings a broad smile to British faces. It brings back very happy memories, but not from before the last decade. Mention, however, the nameless West Indian brand or Barbados—or Babylon—and what we get is a scowl. Or a furrowed brow. Not easy to erase is the memory of what …
Read More »Best: Berry wide of mark for praising WI style, yet blasting Lara
History, we West Indians are acutely aware, is written for the most part by the victors. So, although the West Indies have only beaten England seven times in the last 11 series since the end of 2000, in mid-April, British cricket writer Scyld Berry brought the late Tony Cozier to …
Read More »Best: Why Windies should NOT bowl DreRuss at death; and lingering selection questions
Bitter experience is the best teacher. I know. Ever since Jason Holder’s West Indians unaccountably turned the tables on England at Headingley in 2017, I hate the taste of Brylcreem. And yet, here we go: I will eat my hat if Rovman Powell’s West Indies do not emerge victorious in …
Read More »To boycott or not to boycott? Boo, not bravo, to I-Sports’ birdbrained idea!
“People are like animals,” a long-running promo for the two weekly I-Sports programmes asserts, “and sometimes they need to be treated that way on I-Sports.” The Reckless One, who hosts the bi-weekly sessions, has launched a public campaign for us all to boycott this month’s two West Indies versus England …
Read More »Orwell’s take on Maxwell’s incredible no-foot batting, Cummins’ wotlissness and West Indian purblindness
The spirit of George Orwell lay heavy over Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday evening after favourites Australia got past underdogs Afghanistan in the 50-over World Cup match. Over the entrance to the losers’ dressing room, my mind’s eye saw, adapted, the legend from his Animal Farm: ‘Two legs good, no …
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