“[…] The win-loss results of the Phil Simmons-led coaching staff also suggest they should be immediately replaced. Of the 36 T20 International matches played since Simmons’ October 2019 reinstatement as head coach, West Indies won 14 and lost 17 while five ended as no results! “[…] Our replacement suggestions would …
Read More »T2021 W/C: Pollard: ‘Unacceptable… but we won’t panic’; WI out for 55 in disastrous opener against England
The West Indies’ T20 World Cup title defence got off to a disastrous start today as, asked to bat first, the ‘Men in Maroon’ posted the third lowest total ever at this level, managing just 55 runs against England at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium in the UAE. Only 42-year-old …
Read More »T2021 W/C: Message from ‘Mike’; Pollard’s WI troops must strike blow for ‘marginalised’ cricket nations
“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 …
Read More »Pollard hails out fans as West Indies start T20 World Cup vs England
Sunday 14 November, 2021. Remember the date. Fans all over the Caribbean will probably be marking Monday 15 November down on their calendars as well. The organisers are calling it a reserve day; West Indian fans are already seeing it as a day reserved for celebrating Kieron Pollard’s men capture—for …
Read More »Clive Lloyd’s 1975-76 WI (Pt 3): Marauding ‘Mikey’ terrorises England
The following is the third part of Owen Thompson’s recall of that unforgettable summer in 1976 which ushered in the West Indies cricket team’s glory years: There was one final seminal moment to that summer. The Fifth Test, from 12 August to the 17th, was a metaphor in two halves. …
Read More »Clive Lloyd’s 1975-76 WI (Pt 2): How Vibratious Bob set tone for Windies’ England tour
The following is the second part of Owen Thompson’s recall of that unforgettable summer in 1976 that ushered in the West Indies cricket team’s glory years: While the events of that 1975-76 tour of Australia unfolded (between October 1975 and February 1976), a certain Robert Nesta Marley was getting ready …
Read More »Asterisks and parentheses; why we shouldn’t write off WI’s Wisden chances
That cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties is, though never irrelevant, a very tired cliché. That Test cricket is the most severe examination a player can get, though not clichéd, is not exactly new. West Indies did learn a new cricketing truth today, however. It is that, even when …
Read More »Best: Will West Indies keel over and die? Holder to the rescue against Root’s rampant England
Conventional wisdom holds that Stuart Broad’s Sunday evening new ball spell killed off the West Indies chances in the Second Test at Old Trafford. The truth, however, is that, had Jason Holder been at the top of his game on Monday morning, he might have found a pulse where the …
Read More »Best: Holder’s West Indies to win the Wisden Trophy? You bet!
I am willing to wager more than a few quid on a West Indies victory. Only a handful of England’s actors (skipper Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad) remain on the 2020 set. But Jason Holder has no fewer than seven of his 2017 West Indians, including …
Read More »Captaincy playbook: Brearley: ‘You need to be both inventive and cautious…’
I had been reading Mike Brearley’s 1985 classic, ‘The Art of Captaincy’, and re-reading ‘Frank Worrell’, by Ernest Eytle. It struck me in both that in a sense, like Richie Benaud, they did not become captains of teams, but rather, they moulded teams out of collections of individuals. In their …
Read More »W/Cup addict comments: Lord’s luck—Pt 3: What care they for cricket who dare not tell England no?
Writing on the same WhatsApp chat as his erstwhile captain, Valentino Singh, former QRC opener Zafar Khan opts not to focus on the tiebreaker and the seemingly unfair outcome. He does not say so explicitly but it is clear that he agrees with Singh about how unsatisfactory the eventual outcome …
Read More »W/Cup addict comments: Lord’s luck—Pt 2; Media, players hit ICC from beyond the boundary
An excellent ESPNcricinfo piece with an Osman Saimuddin by-line headlined “What the luck! New Zealand and the randomness of life” has this to say: You can analyse events down to their minutest detail. This happened because he did this and he did that and next time he did this and …
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