Rain, No Play

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 »

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.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul once again fought alone.

At Riverside in the fourth Test, Shiv Chanderpaul continued his valiant, almost singled handed effort in fighting for West Indian pride. Unfortunately, as has been the case for so long, his fight was in vain as the other members of the team rolled over and played dead before a rampant English squad.

With Gayle and Chanderpaul resuming the from the overnight score of 83/3, still 30 runs behind England's first innings total, batting out the day should have been the goal. The first session went well enough, with only Gayle (52) losing his wicket, edging one of his expansive drives to slip. The post lunch session, however, was horrible for any West Indian as the Windies lost 6 wickets for 88 runs to put England in the match winning position. The manner in which many of the batsmen got out left much to be desired as in addition to Gayle and Runako Morton on the previous day, Dwayne Bravo (44) and Daren Powell got out to absolutely ridiculous shots. Denesh Ramdin and Marlon Samuels fell cheaply as well, but at least they got decent deliveries from Monty Panesar. Chanderpaul was last man out for 70, leaving the English the small total of 110 to chase. England then raced to 111/3 with all of 30 overs remaining in the days play.  read more »

Shivnarine Chanderpaul continued his "Mighty Mouse" impersonation in this series and came to the Windies rescue again today. Dwayne Bravo joined him and the pair featured in an unbroken 77 run partnership for the fifth wicket on second day of the fourth and final Test at Chester-Le-Street.

The Test match started after lunch on the second day after rain had washed out the opening day. Put in to bat, the Windies were in trouble right away as Ryan Sidebottom had Daren Ganga's wicket with the first ball of the match. Ganga was slightly unlucky in that he turned a fullish delivery straight into the chest of Alastair Cook at bat pad. Maybe he should heed Sir Everton Weeke's famous advice of not hitting the ball in the air next time. The other three wickets that fell were all due to poor shot selection. Chris Gayle (28), already suffering a poor tour, went for an almighty heave-ho against Matthew Hoggard and was plum lbw when he missed the ball. Gayle looked out of sorts as he tried to blast his way out of his rut by going for big shots. Devon Smith's heart must have sunk when he left a straight one from Sidebottom only to hear the deadly sound of timber rattling behind him. He made only 4. Smith was probably expecting the ball to swing away from him, given the prodigious swing that Sidebottom had earlier extracted, but you can't just leave a ball that's headed straight for your stumps, swing or no swing. Runako Morton (6) did his best to outdo Gayle for the worst shot of the day when he tried to drive a shortish ball from Steve Harmison and gave a simple catch to Sidebottom in the covers.  read more »

The West Indies fell 61 runs short of achieving what would have been a miracle victory against the Englishmen today. No team had ever made as much as 455, the Windies' target, to win a Test match batting last. Shivnarine Chanderpaul's dogged 116 n.o. must be rated his best Test innings as he gave hope to the seemingly impossible victory chase.

Needing a further 154 runs to get at the start of the fifth and final day, and with 5 wickets in hand, the Windies had a decent chance of pulling off the win. They managed to get through to lunch with only the loss of Denesh Ramdin and Darren Sammy, but the tail could not wag enough to get the Windies home. Steve Harmison was the destroyer of the tail enders as his post lunch snorting deliveries that claimed Jerome Taylor's and Fidel Edwards' wickets killed off any hope the Windies had. Monty Panesar again proved to be a handful, taking six wickets in the innings and 10 in the match.

The Windies have regained some pride though, if nothing else. No one would have placed a bet on them making anywhere close to 394. There must have been some nervous individuals in the English dressing room as the Windies crept closer to the target before Harmison and Panesar wrapped up the tail. That though, is little consolidation, as the Windies came agonisingly close to winning a match for the first time in almost two years. What must also be equally agonising is the fact that the West Indies should have won this match. Here are three instances that could have and should have turned the match in the Windies' favour.  read more »

A magnificent bowling performance by debutant Darren Sammy has given the West Indies the slightest sliver of hope in the third Test at Old Trafford. England were cruising along at 265/3 when Gayle's offspin trapped century maker Alastair Cook lbw for 106. Then entered Sammy, who then proceeded to produce a spell in which he took the last 6 wickets to fall, triggering a dramatic West Indies-like collapse on the part of the Englishmen. Sammy bowled a steady line and length just outside the batsmen's offstump and got enough away movement to repeatedly take the edges of the batsmen. Sammy's figures of 7/66 were the second best ever by a West Indian on debut after Alfred Valentine's 8 for 102 in 1950. His stunning spell was punctuated by an over in which he took 3 wickets in 5 balls.

Meanwhile, Cook, after inexplicably being given not out by Billy Bowden early in his innings on Friday, went on to make his second ton of the series. Sometimes umpires' decisions go your way and sometimes they don't, with some feeling that they balance each other out in the long run, but how does a batsman feel after watching the ball he edged go straight into the keeper's gloves and then being given not out? How does he feel after going on to make a century after he knows he should have been given out? To make matters worse, the Windies should have had him out another time when Collymore dropped a catch in the deep.  read more »

The West Indies' batting collapse on today's second day of the third Test was so remarkably bad, that even former Windies captain and commentator Viv Richards described it as one of the poorest batting performances he has ever seen. The disappointment and embarrassment was palpable in his voice as the Windies collapsed from 216/4 to 229 all out. The Windies had lost 6 wickets for 13 runs in the space of 44 deliveries.

The day started positively enough, as the Windies were able to wrap up the English tail for 74 additional runs as England fell for 370 runs. Given the Windies' batting frailty, 370 looked like it could have been daunting. However, the Windies' top order, save for Daren Ganga, all got starts and carried the Windies score to 216/4. Gayle, 23, Devon Smith, 40, Morton, 35, Chanderpaul, 50 and Bravo 23 all made useful contributions, but at least 1 or 2 of them needed to go on and make a big score.  read more »

On Thursday, the West Indies had their best day of Test cricket since arriving in England. In fact, the post lunch session was probably the best session of Test cricket that the Windies have produced in a couple years. English captain Michael Vaughan won the toss at Old Trafford and decided to bat on what looked liked a fast scoring pitch. The decision seemed to have payed off as the Windies bowlers were flayed to all parts of the ground during the opening session. England survivied the early wicket of Andrew Strauss, who fell to Jerome Taylor, to race to 112/1 off 28 overs at lunch.  read more »

Michael Vaughan leads his team off the field victorious.

[Photo courtesy of Jon Hall]

One thing that can never be said about West Indies cricket is, "It can't get any worse than this!".

Today it got about as bad as it possibly could for the Windies as they caved to a massive innings and 283 runs defeat - the biggest defeat in the 79 year history of West Indies Test cricket. After following on a full 424 runs behind England's big first innings total of 570/7, the West Indies put on an even more pitiful performance than their first innings total of 146. This time they folded for 141.  read more »

In last week's drawn first Test at Lord's the Windies demonstrated remarkable fight to save the match after England had piled up a massive 553/5 declared. The Windies' fast bowlers struggled in the first innings with their lack of match practice being on full display. A solid batting performance led by Shiv Chanderpaul's 74 and some dogged batting by lower order batsmen Dwayne Bravo (56), Denesh Ramdin (60) and Daren Powell (36) carried the Windies to a respectable 437.

A strong bowling performance led by Corey Collymore's 3/58 and Chris Gayle's 3/66 restricted England to 284/8 dec and left the Windies with a steep run chase of 401. The Windies started positively at 89/0, but an almost rained out final day resulted in the tame draw.  read more »