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?
- Wavell Hinds has been suspended for the remainder of the calendar year from the local Jamaican club season for allegedly verbally abusing umpires in a club match on June 24. Hinds, however has the right to appeal the length of the suspension which as it now stands would leave him ineligible for selection to the Jamaican team for the regional cricket season, expected to begin in October. I have no problems with the suspension if he did in fact verbally abuse the umpires as there is no place for that in cricket, but I feel the details of the alleged infraction should be made public so that we can judge the fairness of the length of the suspension. The swift action of the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) is in stark contrast to the foot dragging by the WICB in formally punishing Ryan Hinds and company following the acrimonious Carib Beer Challenge Final in February. To my knowledge the only punishment supposedly meted out by the WICB was the refusal to accept Hinds as vice-captain for the ill fated Zimbabwe A Team tour that never materialised.
-On the international scene, India are about to complete a series win in England for the first time in over 20 years. Leading the series 1-0 after 2 matches, the Indians have set England 500 to win, thanks in large part to a maiden century of 110n.o. by leg-spinner (or is that all-rounder?) Anil Kumble. Kumble joins Chaminda Vaas and Jason Gillespie as bowlers who have made their maiden Test century since the start of 2006. To avoid their first home series defeat in 7 years, the English men would have to make 444 runs on the final day of the match. Even with ten wickets remaining that's next to impossible. Hope we didn't jinx the Indians!
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