“Take a Rest”

*Photos from www.cricinfo.com

A calypso by the band Tradewinds telling the WICB to “Take a Rest” has made for popular listening in the past week around the region and after the West Indies win today to secure a 2-1 series victory in the one day internationals, it is even more apt for the Board to take the advice and leave our cricket be! Ken Gordon may be resigning but nothing will change when his replacement comes into the job. The old boys network will continue as normal and life will go on.

Blunder after blunder characterised the WICB’s approach to the tour of England and ironically one of them- the row between the parasites and Gayle- served to unify and motivate the team in the one days and helped salvage some West Indian pride. Obviously nothing can take away from the inspired performances of Chanderpaul who continued to bat on a separate level from everyone else, Edwards who bowled with pace and much better control in the past, Powell who again looked like the bowler we saw in the World Cup, Rampaul who bowled with heart and commitment and the cameos of Samuels, Bravo and Morton on different occasions. While I didn’t think that Gayle should have been awarded the captaincy based on his poor performances in recent times, I admit that he did a good job in leading the team and hopefully this bit of responsibility will also translate into his batting. Once again the attitude of the team was encouraging and it warmed my heart to see the enthusiastic fielding, chatter and celebrations when English wickets fell.

Tony Cozier wrote an article earlier this week about the drastic transformation of the team when it came to the shorter form of the game while Will Luke in a cricinfo.com article says that the West Indies deserve to celebrate.

The Madness Continues

The farcical drama that our cricket has been reduced to continues to play itself out in front of the world. The idiots that call themselves the WICB decided to censure Chris Gayle for critical comments he made about the Board a few days ago in his tour diary. Gayle’s refusal to apologise led to the censure. The West Indies Players Association then came to Gayle’s defence, revealing that the article was vetted by the tour manager as part of normal protocol and approved. Guess who met Gayle along with Ken Gordon to discuss the issue before Gayle was censured: the tour manager Michael Findlay. What does this make the Board and Findlay look like: bloody fools!

Chris Gayle has been a failure with the bat and doesn’t even deserve a place on the team furthermore the captaincy. He needs to do his talking on the field with the bat and with a change of attitude. However, I must admit the comments he made were totally correct: the Board has no legitimate authority to demand anything of the players when it is the reason for the mess we are in. It is rather large of the Board to speak of Gayle embarrassing it; every member of the Board should resign and apologise to the West Indian people for what they have done to the one regional institution that was a success.

Read two articles on cricinfo.com here (1 and 2) and one from the UK Telegraph here on the whole fiasco.

Back in Action, West Indian Resistance and West Indian Folly

I was out of commission for a few days as my laptop had to pay another visit to the office to get fixed. Apparently nothing was wrong with the wireless adapter because it functioned normally there. Now that I have it back, it is working but not consistently- annoying situation!

The West Indies surprised everyone with a great fight back after being thrashed for the first half of the third test even though in the final analysis they lost yet another overseas test. Chanderpaul continued to highlight his worth to the team while Darren Sammy who I did not think should have been on the tour made a remarkable start to his test career. Will he build on this performance or will he go the way of so many players of the past decade who showed promise and then regressed? Only time will tell. Even though Fidel Edwards’ final figures did not look impressive, his extra pace made a difference and at least we did not have to bear the sight of Pieterson charging down the pitch to one of our “fast” bowlers like he has been doing to the rest, especially Collymore.

Tony Cozier and Andrew Miller wrote two good articles on the last test and Chanderpaul respectively so have a read.

While on the field the team was fighting against England, off the field the West Indian administrators were fighting among themselves on the choice of captain for the one day series that follows the tests. The selectors chose Gayle but the WICB Executive Committee rejected that choice and instead headed by Ken Gordon advised the selection panel to appoint Darren Ganga (who was not even selected as part of the one-day team)and Dinesh Ramdin as captain and vice-captain respectively. The latest news seems to be that the selection panel has refused and so yet again the Caribbean fulfills the stereotype of a bunch of inefficient fools who can't manage the simplest of tasks. While I would hate to see Gayle captain the team, Ganga with his inability to make the one-day side and even struggling in the test team is not exactly a much better choice!

The absence of West Indian fans at cricket grounds during the Caribbean team’s tours has been noticeable in recent years. In addition, besides Alex Tudor a few years ago, there have been no black players on the England team unlike the 1980s and early 1990s. Two interesting articles about this can be read here- 1 and 2. Fellow blogger Colonise This! also writes about the issue here.

West Indian Turmoil and a Sri Lankan Demolition Job

Sri Lanka completely dismantled the New Zealanders today to reach their second World Cup final. It was an outstanding performance and they dominated from the time they won the toss and decided to bat. Any attempts by New Zealand to fight back were strongly resisted and the captain led from the front with a perfect example of how to pace a one day international innings. He followed that up with some excellent captaincy, reflected by his decision to bowl Dilshan when New Zealand was trying to wrestle control after the loss of two wickets. Besides Jayawardene’s performance, that of the umpires and in particular Rudy Koertzen stood out but for differing reasons. Two extremely poor decisions went against the Sri Lankans when they were batting and I find it hard to believe that two top umpires can make such huge mistakes. Koertzen added to his howler in Sri Lanka’s innings by denying them an extremely close LBW call and then singling out Fernando for shocking treatment. To warn a bowler twice in his first over for running onto the pitch without speaking to him before was a bit harsh and I felt that New Zealand was playing with 12 men on their side today! While Fernando had a bad day at the office, the rest of Sri Lanka's varied attack all did well. Vaas bowled his normal line and length, Malinga was fiery and Muralitharan hiw wily self; will this bowling attack be enough to stop the Aussies in the finals? I am assuming that they will beat South Africa tomorrow although I would so love to be wrong!

While the Sri Lankans celebrate, West Indies cricket continues its downward spiral. Lara’s retirement was followed by the resignation of the coach Bennett King and rumours that the WICB President, Ken Gordon, had also resigned. Ken Gordon has since stated that he has not resigned but there has been confusion over the selection of the team to tour England, with Gordon, in response to Lara’s comments in his press conference that he had met with selectors to select the team to England and had selected himself, claiming that the selectors did not meet to select a team. To add to all of this, the WICB and WIPA are locked in another battle; this time it is over the WICB seemingly going back on its agreement with WIPA on the status of the England tour in relation to the ICC’s Future Tours Programme.

Amongst all of this, Ian Bradshaw has announced his retirement. Bradshaw may not be the most naturally gifted player in the team, but he has made the most of his abilities, is a thinking cricketer and has shown total commitment to the West Indies. The West Indies waited until Ridley Jacobs was in his 30s before deciding to select him and it is obvious that they did not learn from that situation for they waited until Bradshaw was 30 before handing him a maroon cap. All manner of undisciplined, uncommitted players were given a chance but Bradshaw, a shining example of hard work, discipline and civilised behaviour was kept out. When he was finally given the chance he performed admirably. Unfortunately his form dipped in this World Cup and he only played three matches. West Indies needs many more players with his attitude.

So what does the future hold for our cricket? I am, to be honest, pessimistic. The WICB cabal/politburo has stubbornly resisted any type of meaningful reform and continues to function almost like a secret society. Unless there is a revolution in the way the game is run in the region, our cricket will fail to lift itself from the lowest ground it has now reached. Rawle Brancker was supposed to deliver the Sir Frank Worrell Lecture tonight on the topic of the WICB. I am looking forward to hearing what he said.