Cricket

West Indies lost their second and final warm-up match against Afghanistan today by 55 runs at the ICC Academy Ground in Dubai and will start their ICC T20 World Cup defence on Saturday on the back of a three-game losing streak. The defending champions, WI are chasing an unprecedented third …

Left-arm spinner Akeal Hosein has been promoted to the West Indies’ 15-man T20 World Cup squad as a replacement for spinner/all-rounder Fabian Allen, after the latter player failed to recover from an unhealed right ankle injury. The ICC technical committee approved the change today.  Hosein, a 28-year-old Trinbagonian, only debuted for …

In Dubai today, in the first of two warm-up games before their opening T20 World Cup cricket contest, Kieron Pollard’s West Indies failed to get going. In a comprehensive defeat to Pakistan, they managed only 130 for 7, going down by six wickets with 27 balls to spare. The ‘Maroon …

“[…] No fewer than eight of the 15 players chosen, namely Evin Lewis, Lendl Simmons, Chris Gayle, Shimron Hetmyer, Nicholas Pooran, captain Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell and Fabian Allen, have repeatedly proven themselves to be fully capable of winning T20 matches on their own, with their very powerful, often destructive …

A guilty conscience, those who grew up in Trinidad in the second half of the 20th century would often have heard, needs no accuser. Christopher Henry ‘Scrempy’ Gayle grew up in Kingston, Jamaica in the second half of the second half of the last century. But he probably heard it …

“Dive, boy, dive!” Many of the details which were reported here on Wired868 at the time escape me now. But who can forget Dwayne Bravo’s ringing exhortation to his younger brother to give 100%? Or forget the exasperated four-letter word that subsequently came through the stump mike when Darren Bravo …

It would not be accurate to say that West Indies off-spinner Sunil Narine almost single-handedly put the Kolkata Knight Riders into the IPL semi-final on Monday. Why? Because accuracy requires that we say ‘former West Indies off-spinner Sunil Narine’. Mr Roger Harper and his selection panel were well aware that, …

“Mike,” Bruce Patterson writes in a comment appended to a piece headlined ‘The Big Squeeze’ in Friday’s London Times, “this is career-defining work. Brilliant insight into how greed and poor governance is killing the game we all love.” “The game of cricket needs more prominent figures (like you),” adds P …

I wish to leave veteran West Indies batsman Chris Gayle aside for the moment and turn my attention to a not unrelated issue. My interest in the fitness of West Indies players and the granting of medical exemptions has been further piqued with the recent injury struggles faced by the …

He was once the best of them. But don’t blush, baby! He may now be the worst of them. Or close to it… The day was 21 September 2021 and the self-proclaimed ‘Universe Boss’ Chris Gayle was celebrating his 42nd birthday. It was the first game of the re-started IPL …

“[…] Our suggestion would be for the CPL to explore the possibility of allowing franchises based in Florida and Toronto… The 17 member rosters of the Canada and US franchises could also comprise nine local players, five born in the Caribbean and three internationally based.  “In addition to providing much-needed …

It is time, some say, for Romario Shepherd to be on the side. Some suggest that he should have got the nod over Ravi Rampaul, a soon-to-be-37-year-old seamer whose once-blossoming international career nose-dived in the wake of injury and weight issues. That was then. Now he is back, in a …