West Indies Cricket - General Discussion

[Beamer]

I thought I would start this thread as I appear to be the only diehard West Indies fan here after WW's rather unfortunate dismissal. Mods feel free to rename or merge if a thread like this has been started recently, but I certainly couldn't find it.

There are a huge number of negatives I could start with, but instead I'll focus on one of the more exciting developments of the last 2 years... the armory of tall fast bowlers we appear to be redeveloping at last. Our fast bowling stocks are actually extremely promising (thank God, because the standard of batsmen we are currently producing is abysmal).

Here are the ones to keep your eye on (I've left out Shannon Gabriel as we've alread seen him in action, but I think he could be a pretty decent quick too):

Delorn Johnson

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6 feet 6 inches tall, he's a left armer who bowls in the late 80s, early 90's at his fastest. He swings the new ball about and is excellent at bowling to right handers from around the wicket. Recently destroyed a decent looking India A batting side repeatedly. Was part of the HPC academy and has been carefully coached over the last year.

Jason Holder

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YouTube Vid

Right arm Medium/Fast. He's not very quick, I'll admit that straight away (mid 80's at his very quickest, mostly late 70's early 80s), but he is at least 6 feet 8 and has Ambrose like accuracy as well as the ability to move the ball both ways. He has perfromed consistently at both FC and A team level.

Kevin McClean

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YouTube Vid

6 feet 3 inches tall, and brisk without being express fast (90mph at best would be my guess). He bowls wicket to wicket and is extremely consistent. Everytime he plays for Barbados or West Indies A, he does the business. He recently came in and took 5 cheap wickets against India A when Jason Holder was rested.

Sheldon Cotterell

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Hasn't taken many FC wickets yet but has been selected for the academy this year. He's a powerhouse left hander, 6 feet 5 inches tall and bowls extremely quickly (90mph plus). He is very raw at the moment though.

Carlos Braithwaite

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6 feet 6 inches tall, bowls in the mid 80s. He gets disconcerting bounce, is fairly accurate and has had an excellent start to his FC career. Also played a ODI for West Indies in Bangladesh.

 

[Bahnz]

Good to see, it would be fantastic to have a West Indies team with a top class pace attack again. Encouraging to see that so many of those guys are averaging really well in FC though, as you pointed out, that might be as much to do with the current standard of WI batting as it is to do with the quality of the current crop of bowlers.

 

[uvelocity]

more wi fans would be good hope your thread goes well

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

What about some of the prospects from WI A side that recently won against India; would you care to mention them to give a little bit of insight to us or already they are listed in your list?

 

[Beamer]

What about some of the prospects from WI A side that recently won against India; would you care to mention them to give a little bit of insight to us or already they are listed in your list?

Well in terms of batting it's not a good time for us at the moment and the pitches really are disgraceful. All touring A teams (England, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in recent years) hae come over here and struggled to score over 300. As I said, we have a number of promising bowlers so it's partly down to that, but I would say the pitches they are playing on are not good for cricket, there is far too much turn from day 1 and the ball keeps low regularly.

You all know about Kraigg Brathwaite, who I'm pretty convinvced will be a solid test batsman in a few years, but I'm certainly not looking forward to watching it. Rumour has it he came down the pitch and hit an India A spinner for two fours the other day. Miraculous!

Kieran Powell looks good at the crease at test level but finds ways to get out. He clearly learnt a lot on the tour of England though because he came home and mullered the India A bowlers about for scores of 139 and 58 not out on a pitch where everyone else struggled.

Jonathan Carter is perhaps the most talented batsman on the A team. He has all the shots and packs a punch. When he was batting for any length of time it appears that he is on a different pitch to everyone else. I'd certainly pay to watch him bat, but I wouldn;t get much value for my buck as he doesn't even have an FC century yet. He clearly has severe concentration issues. If he does sort that out, watch out World as he is a serious talent. He has also recently discovered he can bowl and took 10 wickets against India A. When he bowled against Guyana, Sarwan said he was the quickest Bajan bowler on display! He's also a part time wicketkeeper and a real whippet in the field.

Kyle Corbin is a classy right hander who has been picked for the A team on potential rather than production. He bats like a dream whislt at the crease with all manor of silky shots all around the wicket, but he invariably gets out after a brief cameo, hence his poor FC record. He can keep a bit too so they might be hoping that side of his game can be developed.

Donavon Pagon is a batsman with who best sums up West Indian batting over the last decade. He was a prolific Under 19 batsman, top scorer at the Under 19 World Cup, his runs came at a very high strikerate etc. All the shots, looks absolute class at the crease. Made 35 of the best runs you will ever see on debut versus South Africa. But then he got out. To this day, he still finds ways of getting out in the 30s, it's a tragic waste of God given talent. Still, he had a good last FC season and has made his way back to the A team.

 

[kyear2]

Kieron Powell is an interesting case and to me, has to be given first choice with Gayle againts New Zealand, Kraigg is a selfish player and puts so much pressure on who ever is batting with or after him. Looking forward to seeing Delorn in test cricket and wouldn't give up on Bishoo quite yet.
The bolwing has promise, but we need some of the batting talent and potential to actualise and produce. Kirk Edwards is a big key and I hope he bounces back from his torrid tour. It would also help if Samuels would move up the order to break up the youth (as we all know Chanderpaul is way too selfish to even consider it) and Darren Bravo is a special talent and has developed into an excellent slip fielder.

 

[kyear2]

At some point though we need to face the fact that Sammy is a drag on the team balance as he is not one of our 3 or 4 top seamers or bowlers. If he can reliably bat at 6 and be our 5 bowler then, maybe, but I dont see it. We need to play our best team and combination and quite frankly Sammy on merit would make neither.

 

[uvelocity]

seems like a guy who gets you improved results. should convince him to bowl more imo

 

[marc71178]

At some point though we need to face the fact that Sammy is a drag on the team balance as he is not one of our 3 or 4 top seamers or bowlers. If he can reliably bat at 6 and be our 5 bowler then, maybe, but I dont see it. We need to play our best team and combination and quite frankly Sammy on merit would make neither.

Sammy to me looks like a good honest trier who isn't actually that bad at all and seems to be considerably under-rated by West Indies fans for some reason.

He may struggle as part of a 2 seam, 2 spin combination, but how many times will you realistically play that? (especially if Gayle is serious about his return and whilst Samuels continues to play)

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

I'll be keeping tabs on this thread and reading with interest, but other than what I occasionally see from the West Indian 20:20 tournament, I'm going to have little that I can contribute to it.

 

[fredfertang]

Sammy to me looks like a good honest trier who isn't actually that bad at all and seems to be considerably under-rated by West Indies fans for some reason.

He may struggle as part of a 2 seam, 2 spin combination, but how many times will you realistically play that? (especially if Gayle is serious about his return and whilst Samuels continues to play)

Agreed - poor old Sammy does seem to pick up some unnecessary stick - he may not be another Garry Sobers, but he's certainly not another Khaled Mahmud either

 

[Viscount Tom]

Certainly looks more likely to score runs in tricky conditions than half of the WI top order in that test series just past.

 

[Beamer]

Certainly looks more likely to score runs in tricky conditions than half of the WI top order in that test series just past.

Well I would like to have seen Sammy try and face Anderson and Broad with the new ball moving around all over the place like it did on that first day at Lords! By the time he comes in at number 8 the Dukes ball has lost most of it's shine, so it's not really a fair comparison.

As for us being unfair on Sammy, to a certain extent I agree with those who say it. A lot of it is because his appointment was one of the most blatant acts of cronyism you will ever see (President = St Lucian, CEO = St Lucian.... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that one out) and Sammy certainly did not earn his position as captain. Also, it's hugely embarrresing to have a specialist bowler in the side who cant bowl at 80mph even and yet doesn't move the ball around spectacularly. It's not good for our ego, especially as much of the West Indian game is based on bravado and machosim. Not many West Indians will be able to stomach the sight of English batsman walking down the pitch to our 3rd seamer and still having all the time in the world to pick the length of the delivery.

Sammy does a decent job at a time when we've struggled to win and either don;t have quality fast bowlers or we haven't been able to keepo them fit. He is a good captain who has overseen a definite increase in our competitiveness.

But how do we go beyond 'being competitive' and move onto winning test matches both at home and in various conditions overseas? I rather fear that for us to do that there is no place for Sammy in the team. He is not good enough to keep the young guns out just because he does a /reasonable job' at the moment, and we can't allow situations like Roach, Edwards or Rampaul being rested because Sammy has to be play and we need the specialist spinner.

Also, he is directly blocking Andre Russell's path into the test team. Russell is going to be a fantastic cricketer way above Sammy's ability and eventually we are going to have to invest in him.

 

[Beamer]

Incedentally I agree that Powell should be selected ahead of Barath to bat with Gayle against New Zealand. He looked like he learnt a lot on that tour and really cashed in against India A.

The New Zealand series is actually our most important for a long time, especially for Gibson and Sammy. We simply have to win this series, it's no good just being competitive against the black caps. The two sides are quite evenly matched, if anything we are slightly stronger, and in our conditions we should be winning. Lose the series and a lot of the hard work Gibson has put in will seem pointless and Sammy will come under an awful lot of scrutiny. The fact that we just got stuffed by England in a ODI series we really should be competing very strongly in is not a good sign IMHO.

Anyway, my XI to take on New Zealand in the 1st test:

Gayle
Powell
Edwards (home sweet home)
Bravo
Chanderpaul
Samuels
Ramdin
Sammy
Rampaul
Roach (Best if Kemar is not fit)
Narine

The extra senior batsman in Gayle makes the side look so much stronger.

 

[Debris]

Incedentally I agree that Powell should be selected ahead of Barath to bat with Gayle against New Zealand. He looked like he learnt a lot on that tour and really cashed in against India A.

The New Zealand series is actually our most important for a long time, especially for Gibson and Sammy. We simply have to win this series, it's no good just being competitive against the black caps. The two sides are quite evenly matched, if anything we are slightly stronger, and in our conditions we should be winning. Lose the series and a lot of the hard work Gibson has put in will seem pointless and Sammy will come under an awful lot of scrutiny. The fact that we just got stuffed by England in a ODI series we really should be competing very strongly in is not a good sign IMHO.

Anyway, my XI to take on New Zealand in the 1st test:

Gayle
Powell
Edwards (home sweet home)
Bravo
Chanderpaul
Samuels
Ramdin
Sammy
Rampaul
Roach (Best if Kemar is not fit)
Narine

The extra senior batsman in Gayle makes the side look so much stronger.

That side actually looks really competitive on paper if Gayle is actually available. Really think that both Chanderpaul and Samuels should be batting one higher, with Bravo batting at 6. There is always the option of batting Barath at 3 if Edwards form does not improve.

 

[kyear2]

Edwards should improve now that he is home and not dealing with the cold and injury. Am I the only one who believes that Fidel or Tino is a better option than Sammy.

 

[Beamer]

Having watched a bit more of Jason Holder, I think he's in with a shout of playing senior cricket soon. Serious bounce and accuracy. Might need to up his pace slightly to really crack international cricket though.

He also has a ridiculously short run up, I swear it makes Kemar's look massive.

 

[Prince EWS]

Having watched a bit more of Jason Holder, I think he's in with a shout of playing senior cricket soon. Serious bounce and accuracy. Might need to up his pace slightly to really crack international cricket though.

He also has a ridiculously short run up, I swear it makes Kemar's look massive.

From the sounds of things I'd rather watch reality TV than watch this **** bowl.

 

[Beamer]

From the sounds of things I'd rather watch reality TV than watch this **** bowl.

Nah he's not bad to watch at all. Certainly preferable to watching Sammy bowl that's for sure.

He can also hits the ball a country mile when he bats, he just hasn't done it as much as he should since youth cricket.

 

[Prince EWS]

Nah he's not bad to watch at all. Certainly preferable to watching Sammy bowl that's for sure.

I have slightly odd tastes tbf. From what you said he relies almost exclusively on bounce, which is a turn-off for me regardless of how effective the bowler is.