Tag Archives: Frank Worrell

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 …

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 …

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 …

Recently retired former West Indies ODI captain Dwayne Bravo is not happy with the way CWI does business. “From top level, he explained to SportsMax in a post-World Cup interview, “the politics is so strong. It doesn’t matter who is the president or who is the CEO, they have the …

When your World Cup ends prematurely, you’re in more hell than Brown. You looked at the West Indies line-up, boasting in excess of 1500 T20 matches, more than 20,000 thousand T20 runs and over a 1,000 T20 wickets. “If deh beat we,” you told yourself confidently, “deh eat we!” So …

“At a time when aggressive, proactive international captaincy is in short supply,” writes Ian Chappell, in discussing Ajinkya Rahane’s leadership in the absence of Virat Kohli, “India are fortunate to have two leaders who both understand the value of taking wickets over containing the opposition.” At a time when aggressive, …

“[…] ‘Pegasus’ was formed by Brother Makandal Daaga after a life-changing event at an Independence night party, on 31 August 1962. He was shocked when persons protested noisily, when the DJ put on the very first calypso for the night, shouting that it was not Carnival and for him to …

“[…] I still remember watching Sir Everton Weekes during that third Test in Bourda, when he scored 81 out of a paltry West Indies total of 182. “Wickets were falling continuously around him—[JK] Holt (12), [Jeffrey] Stollmeyer (16), [Clyde] Walcott (8), [Frank] Worrell (5), Garfield Sobers (12) and Denis Atkinson (13) …

The West Indies has had a phenomenal number of exceptional cricketers in its history. The captains have been mostly middling. I restricted the playbooks to those of Frank Worrell, Richie Benaud and Mike Brearley simply because they were known as thinking men—able in both the technical and ‘man-management’ aspects of …

It was reported that during the 2019 ICC World Cup, the England team pulled up and did some soul searching. They revisited videos of sessions featuring themselves—not at play—but talking about their feelings. Their feelings. It takes a lot of courage to do that; courage and trust. I’m thinking here …

I’m trying to outline the philosophies that shaped the way three outstanding captains approached leadership: Richie Benaud, Michael Brearley and now, Sir Frank Worrell. Born in 1924, dead at 42 in 1967, Sir Frank was an outstanding citizen of the West Indies, whose stature transcended cricket. He began his international …

Practically all the tributes that have congregated in memory of Sir Everton Weekes have come from cricketers and sports writers. They list his age, his career statistics and his batting style. Some have recounted an encounter. Cricket reporters tend to give the numbers; cricket writers are more interested in telling …