“We are a six-hitting team,” West Indies white ball vice-captain Nicholas Pooran repeated time and time again in the run-up to the 2021 World Cup. In the UAE, we saw none of it. But today, needing a Carlos Brathwaite imitation in the second T20I at the same Eden Gardens in …
Read More »Pooran hits half-century in vain as India hand West Indies 6-wkt defeat in opening T20I
Many hands, they say, make light work. India needed only six pairs of hands to chase down Kieron Pollard’s West Indies’ modest target of 157, getting to 162 with six wickets and seven balls in hand in the First T20 in Eden Gardens in Kolkata yesterday. After West Indies vice-captain …
Read More »Orin: How the IPL complements West Indies cricket rather than detracts from it
“[…] For two months’ work in India, Guyanese allrounder Romario Shepherd, in what will be his first IPL tournament, will take home a salary of just over US$1m before taxes and other deductions for local cricketing entities. “Other players are making more—we’ll get to that in a while—but Shepherd had …
Read More »Alzarri, Evin, Mayers, Odean and Rovman drafted as 17 West Indians get IPL deals
Seventeen regional cricketers will line up in the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 competition this season—although almost one-third of them are not in the current West Indies squad. Jamaican bowling allrounder Odean Smith was today drafted by the Punjab Kings, coach Anil Kumble suggesting that he was suitably impressed …
Read More »Khan, Furlonge grumble as T&T Red Force stumble past Jamaica; Guyana and Barbados eke out wins
The Trinidad and Tobago Red Force became the first team to win a fixture in the 2022 West Indies Championship, seeing off the Jamaica Scorpions today at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba. But, as the Red Force stumbled clumsily over the finishing line, it is anyone’s guess which …
Read More »Best: Niggling doubts about Pollard’s future as captain; is he considering calling it a day?
It’s beginning to look a lot like, not Christmas, but ciao for West Indies white ball captain Kieron Pollard. I have a niggling suspicion that the 34-year-old globetrotting allrounder has had it with the sniping and the pot-shot-taking that never ends in the Caribbean. And with having to repeat, you …
Read More »India clinch ODI series as West Indies top-order batsmen collapse around Brooks
With India unsteady on 43 for 3 in the 11th over, the Nicholas Pooran-led West Indies looked to have a sniff in the second ODI in the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad today. But after that, the visitors smelled only leather as Rohit Sharma’s batsmen powered their way to 237 …
Read More »Skerritt’s ‘introselection’ explained; why CWI presidents want no West Indies sole selector
Sick! Toxic! CWI president Ricky Skerritt has not actually uttered those words in public. Not yet. But two recent references to ‘mischief-makers’ tell us that this quiet, even-tempered Kittitian gentleman has had it up to here with what goes on behind closed doors in CWI. And in plain sight in …
Read More »Pollard: “We have to find a way!” West Indies whipped by India, despite Holder half-century
Player-of-the-Series against England Jason Holder continued his return to world number one allrounder form at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad today—this time with the bat. But his six-speckled half-century could only get a disappointing West Indies batting line-up to 176 all out in 43.5 overs in the first of …
Read More »Media Monitor: Unamusing musings the morning after Holder’s WI miracle the night before
Although they may not admit it, people do not like to be wrong; certainly, nobody likes to be seen to be wrong. Sometimes, however, you rejoice that you did not get it right. And you are overjoyed that you resisted the temptation to rush into print to share the view …
Read More »England ditched in Barbados again as Holder takes four wkts from as many balls in thrilling WI series win
An exhilarating series got a storybook ending tonight as West Indies beat England by 17 runs at the Kensington Oval in Barbados to clinch the Betway T20 International Series 3-2. And it was hometown hero, Jason Holder, the man whose initial sidelining from the 2021 T20 World Cup prompted Barbados …
Read More »Best: Regional rumblings rock CWI; mea culpa: me, mischief-makers and my big mouth
It was, I swear, a completely innocent comment. But the cricket coaches at Queen’s Royal College in the 1960s must take some of the blame. They taught us to try to see any cricket match through the eyes of the opposing captains. On 22 January in Wired868, this paragraph appeared …
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