Rain, No Play

Congratulations to Jamaica for wrapping up the regional triple: The ODI competition in October last year, the Carib Beer Series and the Carib Beer Challenge, soundly beating Trinidad and Tobago in the process. Only a similarly sound beating inflicted by Trinidad in the Stanford2020 final prevented Jamaica from sweeping all the regional senior level competitions.

Thanks to powen001 for the video.

The West Indies were denied in their efforts to win the ODI series 3-0 by persistent rain, but they have to be satisfied with the 2-0 series win. At Beausejour, St. Lucia, the Windies were 81/2 in chase of 258 when persistent rain ended the match. The Sri Lankans were held in check by Dwayne Bravo and Chris Gayle and owed their reaching 250 to a good late innings effort by Tilekeratne Dilshan.

Gayle again dropped himself down the order, but Sewnarine Chattergoon made a dashing 46. Chattergoon's form has been encouraging, but Gayle's has been the opposite.

Next month the Australians come calling in the West Indies. For the Windies to have decent chance against the Aussies, we will need Gayle, inspirational captain or not, to be firing at the top of the order.

Backed by unbeaten half centuries from Shiv Chanderpaul 52n.o. and Marlon Samuels 54n.o., the Windies strolled to an easy 7 wicket victory in the second ODI at Port-Of-Spain. This made it 2 from 2 and guaranteed a series victory in the 3 match series. The Windies were set a target of 125 from 25 overs after rain cut short the Sri Lankan innings to 112/5 off 30.3 overs. Jerome Taylor and Dwayne Bravo were miserly and had the Sri Lankan batsmen struggling throughout their rain interrupted innings.

After the Duckworth-Lewis rule left the home side a target of 125 off 25 overs, the Windies struggled initially as they slumped to 18/3. However the dependable Chanderpaul and the short-of-form Samuels put together an unbeaten century stand to win the match. The third and final match will be in St. Lucia on Tuesday, April 15.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ottis Gibson were this week named among the five Cricketers of the Year by Wisden Cricket Almanack. This was the first time that any West Indian had been included in the annual list since 1997 when Phil Simmons got the honour.

Chanderpaul was almost a one man show in England last year for the West Indies and he continued his good form in South Africa late last year. Chanderpaul tied a Test record by making scores of at least 50 in 7 consecutive innings.  read more »

I always enjoy the commentators' reactions. Ian Bishop kinda loses it at the end, but so did all of us who watched it live! Talk about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. The story was almost the reverse though as the Windies had Sri Lanka at 49/5 in their innings and the Windies were at one time 109/1 in chase of Sri Lanka's 235.  read more »

Video courtesy of powen001.  read more »

After taking 5 wickets in the first innings, Murali will be the dangerman for the Windies on a fourth innings Trinidad pitch.

253 or bust. Those are the options facing the Windies at the end of day 3 of the second and final Test between the Windies and Sri Lanka at Port of Spain. After losing the first Test in Guyana, the West Indies batsmen will have to make 253 runs or face the prospect of being swept in the Caribbean for the first time ever.  read more »

Chasing a target of 437 for victory, West Indies could only hope for a draw by the middle of the second session as the batsmen failed to make the most of a very good start to the day by Bravo and Sarwan. Resuming at 96/1, both batsmen acquitted themselves well in taking the score to 156 before Bravo was C&B by Muralitharan for 83.

At 156/2, Sarwan well set and Samuels, Chanderpaul and Gayle to come, a draw was very much still in the cards. West Indies failed to solidify their position, however, as wickets fell at regular intervals. Samuels was next to go - caught behind off Chaminda Vaas. And when Chanderpaul was beaten all over the place by a Vaas incutter, the prospect of a draw all but dissipated.  read more »

For those of you West Indies fans overseas who are unable to get any television coverage, try the link below. You will need to download Sopcast in order to watch it. You can do so at www.download.com

http://indiaforumtv.blogspot.com/2007/12/indias-tour-of-australia-live.h...

At stumps on Day four of the first test between West Indies and Sri Lanka, the home side continued the promise shown at the end of the previous day, leaving themselves with a fairly reasonable chance of securing a draw.

Resuming this morning in hopes of avoiding the follow on, Jerome Taylor and Daren Powell saw the Windies through to 280 forcing the Sri Lankas to return to the crease. By mid-evening, the tourists declared their second innings at 240/7 leaving West Indies 437 from 113 overs to win.

Given his run of poor form against Chaminda Vaas, captain Chris Gayle opted to send Bravo in his stead to open the innings with Devon Smith. Sri Lanka sniffed a chance to make some serious inroads before stumps as Smith was caught attempting to play a hook shot with the score on 22. Sarwan then joined Bravo to steady the ship until the close as both managed to play without much trouble and at a rate quick enough to keep alive any minute chance of a West Indian victory.  read more »