Assistant coaches are the wretched of the earth; they may be called assistants but they offer little real help. Roddy Estwick is the assistant coach of the West Indies cricket team. According to Estwick, the West Indies’ 15-run defeat by Australia in last Friday’s crucial fixture, had “nothing to do …

Sunday 9 June. India and Australia, their places almost reserved in the final four of the 2019 World Cup, are trying to settle the pecking order. The Indian innings is almost at an end. And already, with six balls still left, Australia are going to have to put together the …

The setting was perfect: a fine summer’s day, a sell-out crowd, a sea of blue and a home game for India at the Oval in London. Capitalising, Virat Kohli’s side, who are pressing the home team hard as favourites to take the 2019 World Cup, produced a near-perfect exhibition of …

We have been asked to announce the death of cricket reportage. In this post-Tony-Cozier age of e-literacy when T20 has shifted the focus squarely onto entertainment, its final passing, long in coming, will probably go largely unremarked and certainly unlamented. The only ones crying will be those media owners who …

Bangladesh captain Masrafe Mortaza should have spoken to Michael Holding before he won the toss and asked victorious England skipper Eoin Morgan to take first strike. “That greenish sheen on the top of the pitch,” the former-West-Indies-pacer-turned-international-television-commentator warned several times during subsequent commentary, “is a mirage.” England shattered all Mortaza’s …

When the Jason Holder-led West Indians took on Australia in Nottingham yesterday, the five-times World Cup winners emerged victorious by a margin of 15 runs. Recovering from 58 for 4 and then 79 for 5, Aaron Finch’s Aussies went on to post a challenging 288. In reply, the West Indies …

Rohit Sharma hit a short ball from Kagiso Rabada high into the Southampton sky. Unlike the ones that came off the edge in the early exchanges, a South African, David Miller, was able to settle under this chance. It made no difference; the ball still hit the ground. Sharma added …

“They turned up here today expecting to win…” former England captain Nasser Hussain unabashedly declared immediately after Pakistan’s unexpected 14-run win over the home team at Trent Bridge yesterday. Hussain can finish his own sentences and, given the choice before the game, he’d probably have opted for “… because they …

South Africa, number two in the official ICC ODI rankings, didn’t look the part on Thursday against England. In yesterday’s match-up against Masrafe Mortaza’s seventh-ranked Bangladeshis, they did get the fans talking about number two but the reference was not to their ranking. Asked to get a World Cup record …

The best time to be in front is at the end. So that now that the final warming-up is done and the real business has begun, expect Australia, England and India to be out front in a league of their own. Two vowels are left but one place. Either Oman …

On another day, it might have gone another way; the boot might well have been on the opposition’s foot. Yesterday, however, Jason Holder’s West Indies kicked some butt, embarrassing Pakistan with a rapid, convincing seven-wicket defeat. On a lively pitch in not unhelpful conditions, the West Indian pace attack exploited …

We’d love nine wins! But six wins and three losses would be enough; with that round robin tally, Jason Holder and his 14 acolytes can feed the millions of West Indian mouths which have long hungered for World Cup cricketing success. That would be a miracle, you say? And so? …