Tag Archives: Earl Best

For years, the Guyana Amazon Warriors were the bridesmaids of the Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League, the 12th edition of which bowls off in Antigua today. But after whipping four-time champions Trinbago Knight Riders in an anti-climactic final at home in 2023, Imran Tahir’s side seem poised to repeat in …

“…a divided world that don’t need islands no more…” Can it be that Sir Clive Lloyd does not know fellow OCC awardee David Rudder’s pithy line from his 1988 Rally? Or is it that he simply wishes to ignore it? Or is the problem that Rudder’s 1996 Legacy prediction has …

June 29, the T20 World Cup final. David Miller, the finisher who came in at #6, has just given his hand away. Unnecessarily. Kagiso Rabada can win the coveted trophy for South Africa. True, he’s batting at #10. But cometh the hour, cometh the batsman. Even a #10 can get …

A cricket match, a wise old scribe has written, is played in the minds of the opposing captains. Even in today’s changed world of T20 cricket? Hmmm….  Let’s see… For a full century after Australia’s 45-run victory over England at Melbourne in the first-ever Test match in 1877, the statement …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Bring back the old-time days… Do you remember the primary school days when we sat in the dusty school yard under the tambrand, tree, the downs tree, the immortelle tree, the padoo tree, or whatever tree that was in the yard while teacher Percy preached hellfire and brimstone and brought …