Earl Best

Earl Best taught cricket, French, football and Spanish at QRC for many years and has written consistently for the Tapia and the Trinidad and Tobago Review since the 1970's. He is also a former sports editor at the Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad Express and is now a senior lecturer in Journalism at COSTAATT.

Reviewing the 1990 Coup: Is Abu Bakr’s number up?

Columnist Earl Best refuses to shoulder arms as he revisits one of the most controversial periods in Trinidad and Tobago’s history History is replete—littered is more appropriate since the dung heap of history is where we find them—with characters who make no distinction between fame and notoriety. Adolf Hitler, Jack …

Read More »

When The Political Tongue Slips

Earl Best recalls some occasions when the public language was not, ahm, parliamentary… Three years ago, Benjai’s monster hit “Trini” mash up the whole place. “And they like to hear Trini talk, talk, talk, talk, talk…,” he told us. There wasn’t one dissenting voice. That “they” includes me because, in …

Read More »

Exploring race and class at the 2014 World Cup

Am I my World Cup brother’s (goal)keeper? Earl Best tackles a delicate subject with all the tact and finesse of an elephant in the Serengeti…or a police raid Behind the Bridge: There is a very real resemblance between Paul Pogba and Blaise Matuidi, the tall, handsome, articulate, intelligent, talented, black, francophone pair of …

Read More »

The Four Moments Which Decided World Cup 2014

So the ruthless Germans have won the Cup after all? It wasn’t the outcome Wired868 expert Lasana Liburd foresaw. But he has now decreed that tiki-kaiser shall henceforth succeed tiki-taka as football’s dominant style. Liburd’s opinion dovetails with the post-final view expressed by TV6’s Sweet Samba guru Keith Look Loy. …

Read More »

Lara makes no name for himself at Lord’s

“Indian fans declare excitement,” a pre-match tweet announced, “over chance to see Sachin and 21 other guys whose names escape me.” The source does not identify the tweeter but it could have been ESPNcricinfo Assistant Editor Allan Gardner, the writer of an online preview to yesterday’s pompously named Marylebone Cricket …

Read More »

Can WI’s T20I form affect Ramdin’s Test captaincy?

On the evidence we have from the just completed three-Test series, new West Indies skipper Denesh Ramdin is going to need a miracle to deliver the turnaround we’re all now looking to him for. So, as a true-true, maroon-blooded WI supporter, I am hoping that, after beating Ramdin’s side 2-1 …

Read More »

Will Lara upstage skipper Tendulkar in Lord’s exhibition?

Old prejudices die hard. So, given a choice between missing an England World Cup win and a typical Brian Lara century, Khrystine, a sports-loving second-generation England citizen, born in London and raised there during the Clive Lloyd/Viv Richards era, never hesitated. “England might be in Russia again in 2018,” she …

Read More »