Rain, No Play

*from the Jamaica Observer.

"West Indies would like to get hold of that trophy first." - Chris Gayle

"in Twenty20, you have to be attacking and flamboyant, and that's the way we like to play our cricket." - Ramnaresh Sarwan

With the opening match of the ICC Twenty20 World Cup just days away in South Africa, the West Indies' captain and vice captain have been talking up the team's chances. But should we really believe them? Didn't we hear this kind of talk before the 50 over World Cup this year in March, only to see the team flop when it mattered most at the Super 8s stage? Let's examine the possibility of a West Indies win.Read more

Hurricane Dean, a category 4 storm, is expected to come onshore Jamaica, where I am, sometime later today and given the expected power outages that will follow, this might be my last post for a while here, depending on how long the power outages last after the storm.

Dean has already killed 5 persons across the Caribbean and caused significant damage to Dominica, St. Lucia, St Kitts and Martinique. Here's hoping that the recovery efforts across the Caribbean will go as quickly and as smoothly as possible. As the rains begin to pick up outside, let's hope that the loss of life and property will be kept to the bare minimum.

The West Indies' selectors today named the 15 man squad for the Twenty20 World Cup which begins on September 11 in South Africa with the hosts taking on the West Indies. The squad reads:

Ramnaresh Sarwan (captain)
Chris Gayle
Shivnarine Chanderpaul
Devon Smith
Marlon Samuels
Runako Morton
Denesh Ramdin (wkt)
Dwayne Bravo
Darren Sammy
Dwayne Smith
Ravi Rampaul
Daren Powell
Fidel Edwards
Narsingh Deonarine
Pedro CollinsRead more

It's been slow news in the world of West Indies cricket the last few weeks, with the Windies not playing any international cricket. But here's a run down of some of the happenings in case you missed them:

- Congratulations to Guyana, who have won the TCL West Indies Under 19 Challenge, their 13th victory in regional youth competitions. The limited overs competition follows in the coming week. One wonders though how a Trinidad team with the likes of Adrian Barath and Darren Bravo who have represented the all-conquering Trinis at the first class level, could only mange third place?

-South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, England, India and Australia have all named their final 15 man squads for the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup which begins in one month on September 11. Many big names, such as Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Kallis, Fleming, Yousuf and Razzaq have been left out of their respective squads for varying reasons. The West Indies, who play in the first match of the tournament, joins Scotland, Kenya and Zimbabwe as teams who have not yet named their final 15. I wonder if the Windies will have a training camp prior to the tournament? Information on the Twenty20 World Cup schedule can be found here.

- The WICB have finally advertised for a new head coach, 3 months after Bennett King stepped down. The closing date for applications is Aug 31, so rush in those applications! Incidentally, why does http://windiescricket.com lead to a page with "ws5"? Maybe a redirect to http://www.windiescricket.com/ would be in order?Read more

New WICB President, Julian Hunte.

After being elected as the new President of the WICB today, Julian Hunte demonstrated in his first day on the job the kind of wisdom that is giving this writer reason to hope for a better day in West Indies cricket. Today, for the first time, the WIPA president, Dinanath Ramnarine was made a (non-member) director of the WICB along with 3 other people: Professor Hillary Beckles, the principal of the Cave Hill campus of the UWI; Ken Hewitt, head of the finance committee of the recent World Cup and importantly former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd.Read more

Bruce Aanensen, CEO WICB

When one feels aggrieved by another person's comments or statements, that person certainly has a right to defend their self interests. On Thursday of this week, embattled WICB CEO Bruce Aanensen felt the need to defend his "good name and reputation", following WIPA President Dinanath Ramnarine's letter to outgoing WICB President Ken Gordon, requesting Aanensen's removal.

Aanensen opened his own letter by saying that he "had contemplated not responding to the accusations made by Mr. Ramnarine..." and he would have been well served to have followed his initial position. Instead of letting Gordon's reply suffice, Aanensen launched into his own laundry list of complaints against Ramnarine, stating that he had among other things, "deliberately not spoken the truth". At least Gordon's letter had a measure of decency to it, Aanensen didn't even bother with that. Aanensen also accused Ramnarine of "spreading misinformation to embarrass the WICB". It seems to us that Aanensen and his colleagues needed no help from Ramnarine to embarrass the WICB as evidenced by the England tour arbitration, including the apparent contradiction of Aanensen's statements by the Barbadian Chief Justice Sir David Simmons, the apparent contradiction of Aanensen by Eddie Green, CARICOM's assistant secretary general, as to whether CARICOM had given the go ahead for the canceled Zimbabwe A team tour, the Gayle-Ganga captaincy fiasco and the late arrival of ODI players in England among other things. All within three months of Aanensen being on the job.Read more

West Indies cricket is proving to be a soap opera that doesn't seem to stop serving up juicy plot lines for all those who enjoy seeing the interactions of people who have nothing but disdain for each other. For those, like myself, who care about West Indies cricket, the whole episode is sickening.

Dinanath Ramnarine, President and CEO of WIPA wrote to Ken Gordon, WICB President calling for WICB CEO Bruce Aanensen's replacement. Ramnarine claimed that Aanensen's "negative" leadership style made it impossible to deal with him. Ramnarine pointed to Aanensen's publicly calling the players "incompetent" in the middle of a tour, the bungling of the arrival of the ODI players in England and the mishandling of the canceled A team tour to Zimbabwe, the tussle with the selectors about whether Gayle or Ganga would be captain of the ODI side in England among other "highlights" of Aanensen's 3 month stint as CEO. (Aside: going back over this list makes me really wonder how this man still has a job!)Read more

Yesterday's commanding victory by the West Indies to seal the 3 match ODI series 2 - 1 must have been a joy to watch for West Indies fans all over the world. The scenes of jubilation by the players on the field and by West Indians in the crowd demonstrated just how much this win meant.

The 93 run victory marked the first series win for the West Indies in Tests or one day cricket since beating Zimbabwe and India in one day series in the West Indies last year and their first away series win since winning the ICC Champions Trophy in 2004.

One of the stark differences between the players in the limited overs series and their performances in the Test series must have been the unbridled joy that they showed on the field. To be true, there wasn't much to celebrate in the Test series, losing 0 - 3 with one loss being the largest ever margin of defeat for a West Indies Test team, but there certainly was a noticeable change in the level of energy and passion on display during the Twenty20 and ODI matches. The scenes of joy yesterday certainly capped off months of frustration. The ebullience of Dwayne Bravo, Fidel Edwards and yes even Mr Cool himself, Chris Gayle, were in stark contrast to the almost lack of effort that was seen at times in the Test matches. Why the change?Read more

WICB CEO Bruce Aanensen and Chris Gayle

On Sunday, Cricinfo executive editor Martin Williamson wondered about the West Indies Cricket Board, How Low Can They Go? With events that have unfolded since then it seems that the WICB is desperately trying to find the answer to that question as well.

Last week Chris Gayle spoke his mind in his Cricinfo blog, calling out the WICB for the mess it created by first rejecting Gayle and then appointing him as stand in ODI captain, and for not having flown in the replacement ODI players in time for a practice match leading the board to have to draft in replacement players from local English leagues. Wrote Gayle:

First and foremost I am very disappointed with the West Indian cricket board (WICB) for not having the guys here in England already and ready to play.

He also expressed his hurt in how his nomination for captain was initially treated by the WICB:

As the captain I have to say that this is disappointing and it is not at all a good start. I also have to mention that I was hurt and disappointed that after I was nominated as captain by the selectors, I did not initially get the support of the board.

He also went on to say that the players wanted "change" and "the best" from the WICB:

The board is always talking about players needing to change but we, the players, need changes from the board as well. We can't be out in the wilderness all the time because we are the ones who are getting all the blame.

These are some of the things that we as players have to go through. The WICB says they want the best out of players but we also need the best out of the board.

Every word that Gayle wrote is true. He has not misrepresented the WICB in any way. However, strictly speaking, Gayle should probably have made these points privately with the board, after all, which organization would want its employees publicly criticising it?Read more

On the eve of next week's Twenty20 Internationals and ODI series against England, the above scorecard from Cricinfo's Slogout must be any West Indian's dream. I can almost see the look on Monty's face as he gets hit for 196 runs off his 9 overs. Slogout's got some way to go, including making the players more life-like (how about some non-white players Cricinfo?), but if you've got a few minutes to spare, it's entertaining, at least until you get bored with its repetitive nature.