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: Lara’s Magnificent Seven Innings revisited—Pt 2
Edgbaston, 501, June 1994: ‘Rambo’ Brian batters Durham “Cricket is a visual art,” CLR James assures us in Beyond a Boundary. “(…) [F]irst and foremost a dramatic spectacle, [i]t belongs with the theatre, ballet, opera and dance.” Extrapolating, one can see a major Brian Lara innings as akin to a …
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 »Strongman Cameron leaves Herculean challenge: how soon can Skerritt and Shallow clean CWI’s stink stables?
“We have already delivered the impossible. For miracles, feel free to check back later.” Were I in the shoes of new CWI President Ricky Skerritt, that is what I would have tweeted on Monday afternoon for the benefit of the West Indies fans, new, old and returning. I confidently affirm, …
Read More »Change at the top! Humble pie for Cameron/Nanthan as Skerritt/Shallow take CWI cake
Like two man-rat, humility and Jamaican Whycliffe ‘Dave’ Cameron cannot live in the same house. But the now former Cricket West Indies (CWI) President was humbled in his own backyard yesterday. New Cricket West Indies (CWI) president Ricky Skerritt and his vice-presidential running mate Dr Kishore Shallow both confessed to …
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 …
Read More »