Trinidad Express Newspapers are in the market for an assistant night editor. Through you, I wish to make an application for the job. On the list of qualifications and experience required for securing employment in this position are nine items: At #7, ‘Proficient knowledge of the structure and content of …
Read More »Best: Will West Indies batsmen get IPL Easter resurrection lessons from mind coach Brian Lara?
Mid-April, the 53rd anniversary of the declaration by Dr Eric Williams’ embattled government of T&T’s first state of emergency, and two voices are in my head. One is real, the other imagined. Neither will go away. “Power alone will never make us strong. The heart must also sing the human …
Read More »Saluting Sir Garry Sobers (Pt 3): A second look at one of WI’s most controversial captains
Calypsonians are as cantankerous as they come. So when Relator suggests that Sir Garfield Sobers was no great shakes as a captain, we have to take that with a pinch of salt. Yet it is there, on the record, in his 1972 hit “Gavaskar”. So we have to deal with …
Read More »Saluting Sir Garry (Pt 2): Batting for Collie—the monkey Sobers carried on his back
Twenty-six centuries and 30 half-centuries. That, according to the official record, is what the legendary left-handed batsman Garfield St Aubrun Sobers has produced for West Indies. But in Sobers’ mind, his record of achievement with the bat is seven 100s and nine 50s, less than half of what the record …
Read More »Saluting Sir Garry Sobers: Happy birthday to cricket’s unique ‘six-tool player’
Born 86 years ago today on 28 July 1936, Garfield St Aubrun Sobers became simply, as Sparrow sang, “the greatest cricketer on Earth or Mars”. Hyperbole? Calypsonians, we know, are so prone. Still, it isn’t easy to dismiss the claim made by the Calypso King of the World on behalf …
Read More »Thompson: “He knew every inch of Territory QRC”—a man called Patrick White
I woke up one morning a few weeks ago to news that dulled the effulgence of the light that usually comes over a city like Madrid in early June. A message from my brother that Patrick White had died. “At school when we were all students it seemed normal,” my …
Read More »WI back to winning ways; Player-of-the-Series Brathwaite warns against complacency
One brilliant one-handed catch from former captain Jason Holder. Some 60-odd deliveries with the ball, eight of them from lead pacer Kemar Roach that yielded two wickets. Just about 30 deliveries with the bat, 21 of them yielding 20 runs for skipper Kraigg Brathwaite. That was all the West Indies …
Read More »Da Silva goes all the way for WI, then ‘Midas’ Mayers leaves England on the brink
At the Masters in Georgia, they call Saturday ‘moving day’. At the National Stadium in Grenada today, a masterly maiden Test century by wicketkeeper/batsman Joshua Da Silva first moved Kraigg Brathwaite’s West Indies into the saddle of the Third Apex Test. Then, with the first innings lead 93, allrounder Kyle …
Read More »Determined Da Silva’s fighting half-century gives WI slim first innings lead
Joshua Da Silva had a steely glint in his eye as he acknowledged the plaudits of the crowd on Day Two of the Third Apex Test at the National Stadium in Grenada today. The wicketkeeper scored a critical, unbeaten, rear-guard 54 to push Kraigg Brathwaite’s West Indies past the 204 …
Read More »Mayers rocks England top order but WI fail to skittle tail on Day One of Third Test
For a session and a half on the opening day of the Third Apex Test at the National Stadium in Grenada today, Kraigg Brathwaite’s West Indies were firmly in the driver’s seat. But by the end of the day, with numbers 10 and 11 their top scorers, Joe Root’s side …
Read More »Marathon man Brathwaite holds off England again, winner-take-all in Grenada finale
Led by another immense feat of endurance and concentration from skipper Kraigg Brathwaite, the West Indies earned a second honourable draw in the Second Test of the three-match Apex Series at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados today All three protagonists played their part to ensure that the predictable outcome was …
Read More »Brathwaite, Blackwood lead from front, make WI day with double centuries
When West Indies vice-captain Jermaine Blackwood walked to the middle of Kensington Oval in Barbados in the Second Apex Test match against England today, his team was on 101 for 3, still 407 runs shy of avoiding the follow-on. When he departed some 68 overs later, West Indies were on …
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