Dammit ....when will the revival happen ?

[Salamuddin]

My childhood favorite sporting team - the mighty West Indies. The only reason I got somewhat distracted from my beloved field hockey to this bloody sport was the West Indies - not even Pakistan enthralled me as much as watching Richie, Curtly , Ian Bishop and co.
Loved watching Curtly putting the fear of God into the Aussies.


20 years of mediocrity.
20 years the Frank Worrell trophy has been with the dark side. 20 years in which the WIndies have lost repeatedly to England - bloody England of all teams.
20 years in which home series have been lost to India - a team that doesn't know the meaning of the word fast bowler.


The talent is there - Braithwaite , Dazza Bravo, Blackwood in the batting.
Roach, Holder, Gariel, Cottrell, Beaton, Jordan, Taylor in the quick bowling - I feel the WIndies have the best fast bowling pool in years.
And West Indian players are natural athletes - they are probably the strongest and fittest athletes of all cricketing nations.

The oft touted claim that West Indian kids are not into cricket anymore is not true - the Windies are still throwing up plenty of talented players.
Some sustained discipline boys - all that's needed and the WIndies will climb back up the rankings.

Australia fear a West Indies revival more than anything else. South Africa almost always come off second best to Australia, England are mediocre, India and Sri Lanka have no decent pace bowlers , NZl will be competitive but never dominate. Pakistan have the bowlers to knock the Aussies off but their batting is brittle and their organization/discipline is woeful. The West Indies board, as bad as it is is probably still better than the PCB.


CARN WINDIES .....and please don't lose to Ireland on Monday.

 

[Athlai]

Probably never. Look at the shambles of their cricketing board and team. Without any infrastructure it's going to always be a mess and with them getting on the bad side of the BCCI they're going to be strangled for money in the future.

 

[morgieb]

When they piss off their board things might change.

 

[Red]

What is going on at lower levels of WI cricket?

Are kids playing it?

 

[GIMH]

What does langeveldt think of this thread

 

[JBMAC]

Too much money made available from Basketball for the kids to be interested in cricket. They now produce 6 foot 6 inch forwards instead of frontline bowlers

 

[Debris]

I look at that West Indies team and think how impossible it would be for a team like that to survive today.

- They had an over rate which generally hovered somewhere between 75 and 80.
- They were a very arrogant side. Australia cops a lot of criticism for being arrogant but they had nothing on this WI side.
- Even back then, there were rumblings of them using short-pitched bowling too much. Can you imagine the howls of protest if they bowled like that now? The number of serious injuries to opposition batsmen was in the dozens.
- They were masters of sledging.
- The brand of cricket they played was actually fairly dull once you got past the individual performances. That team had almost as many draws as it did wins.

 

[Daemon]

But does cricket really need a strong West Indies?

 

[GIMH]

What does langeveldt think of this thread

But does cricket really need a strong West Indies?

 

[Daemon]

Cute that you think I read your posts

 

[GIMH]

And yet you read that one

 

[Daemon]

And yet you read that one

Google alerts notify me when someone quotes me /fy

 

[GGG]

Too much money made available from Basketball for the kids to be interested in cricket. They now produce 6 foot 6 inch forwards instead of frontline bowlers

Just curious as to how much they earn? Would they earn that much more than Gayle, Nairne, Pollard etc? If it is all about the money then it may change now we have 20/20.

 

[Debris]

Just curious as to how much they earn? Would they earn that much more than Gayle, Nairne, Pollard etc? If it is all about the money then it may change now we have 20/20.

You would need to make the NBA or possibly one of the top Euro leagues to compete. Top players in the NBA are making over 10 million a year plus endorsements and there is no way cricket can compete with that. I don't know of any WI player at that level currently. although there is one Australian and potentially a couple of others.

 

[duffer]

Too much money made available from Basketball for the kids to be interested in cricket. They now produce 6 foot 6 inch forwards instead of frontline bowlers

Goughy made a post before sort of dismissing this notion. I'll try and dig it up.

edit:speelings

 

[GotSpin]

From memory he (or someone else) said thats a myth. Its more a case of no sport being played Rather than being replaced by Basketball.

 

[Goughy]

My childhood favorite sporting team - the mighty West Indies. The only reason I got somewhat distracted from my beloved field hockey to this bloody sport was the West Indies - not even Pakistan enthralled me as much as watching Richie, Curtly , Ian Bishop and co.
Loved watching Curtly putting the fear of God into the Aussies.


20 years of mediocrity.
20 years the Frank Worrell trophy has been with the dark side. 20 years in which the WIndies have lost repeatedly to England - bloody England of all teams.
20 years in which home series have been lost to India - a team that doesn't know the meaning of the word fast bowler.


The talent is there - Braithwaite , Dazza Bravo, Blackwood in the batting.
Roach, Holder, Gariel, Cottrell, Beaton, Jordan, Taylor in the quick bowling - I feel the WIndies have the best fast bowling pool in years.
And West Indian players are natural athletes - they are probably the strongest and fittest athletes of all cricketing nations.

The oft touted claim that West Indian kids are not into cricket anymore is not true - the Windies are still throwing up plenty of talented players.
Some sustained discipline boys - all that's needed and the WIndies will climb back up the rankings.

Australia fear a West Indies revival more than anything else. South Africa almost always come off second best to Australia, England are mediocre, India and Sri Lanka have no decent pace bowlers , NZl will be competitive but never dominate. Pakistan have the bowlers to knock the Aussies off but their batting is brittle and their organization/discipline is woeful. The West Indies board, as bad as it is is probably still better than the PCB.


CARN WINDIES .....and please don't lose to Ireland on Monday.

Stopped reading after the bolded. Lazy inaccurate nonsense.

 

[sledger]

My childhood favorite sporting team - the mighty West Indies. The only reason I got somewhat distracted from my beloved field hockey to this bloody sport was the West Indies - not even Pakistan enthralled me as much as watching Richie, Curtly , Ian Bishop and co.
Loved watching Curtly putting the fear of God into the Aussies.


20 years of mediocrity.
20 years the Frank Worrell trophy has been with the dark side. 20 years in which the WIndies have lost repeatedly to England - bloody England of all teams.
20 years in which home series have been lost to India - a team that doesn't know the meaning of the word fast bowler.


The talent is there - Braithwaite , Dazza Bravo, Blackwood in the batting.
Roach, Holder, Gariel, Cottrell, Beaton, Jordan, Taylor in the quick bowling - I feel the WIndies have the best fast bowling pool in years.
And West Indian players are natural athletes - they are probably the strongest and fittest athletes of all cricketing nations.

The oft touted claim that West Indian kids are not into cricket anymore is not true - the Windies are still throwing up plenty of talented players.
Some sustained discipline boys - all that's needed and the WIndies will climb back up the rankings.

Australia fear a West Indies revival more than anything else. South Africa almost always come off second best to Australia, England are mediocre, India and Sri Lanka have no decent pace bowlers , NZl will be competitive but never dominate. Pakistan have the bowlers to knock the Aussies off but their batting is brittle and their organization/discipline is woeful. The West Indies board, as bad as it is is probably still better than the PCB.


CARN WINDIES .....and please don't lose to Ireland on Monday.

Haha, thanks Shiv Fan.

 

[Goughy]

Goughy made a post before sort of dismissing this notion. I'll try and dig it up.

edit:speelings

Yes, it is a myth for a number of reasons which I have probably mentioned before. The simplest illustration is that in Basketball Jamaica is ranked 55 in the World behind such sporting power houses as Cape Verde. Trinidad and Barbados do not even have a World ranking.

 

[Burgey]

I just wonder whether it was a historical accident that WI ever dominated for as long as they did. They produced some world class/ great players over a couple of decades out of a group of very small, pretty poor nations without a lot of infrastructure. They were amazing, of course, but I don't know that they'll ever dominate like that again.

It really should be more about them getting the best out of their available talent with proper structures involved, and see where it all goes from there.