Latest update March 29th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 18, 2015 Sports
Colin E. H. Croft
If you like One-Day Internationals, then the next two months are just for you!
Test and T-20 games for West Indies are completed for now. With WI playing those five ODI games against South Africa as its last warm-up before
ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, and WICB’s Nagico-sponsored 50-overs tournament already started, emphasis is now firmly on 50-overs cricket!
India, England and Australia too are presently contesting an exciting tri-series 50-overs tournament, while Sri Lanka and New Zealand are duking it out relentlessly. ODI cricket has taken over until March!
Those series should be really good, as all teams involved can be in contention for ICC CWC 2015!
It is a pity that scheduling could not allow WICB’s Caribbean’s 50-overs tournament to have been played before WI went to SA, as there could well have been many more alternative names included in that WI squad for ICC CWC 2015. But there is always time to perform for the future too!
In WICB’s tournament, Guyana Jaguars, Barbados Pride and Trinidad & Tobago Red Force have started favorites. The Jaguars, whose playing uniform more portrays black panthers than their fairer feline cousins, who last won this competition in 2006, has already demolished Windward Islands Volcanoes.
No eruptions were visible when Guyana managed 227-6, including a rambunctious 71-run partnership between import Raymond Reifer and Anthony Bramble, after Rajendra Chandrika had made 52 and Vishal Singh debuted with 49. Recovering from 15-2, then 150-4, Guyana’s total was just adequate.
Left-arm spinner Verasammy Permaul, already with thirty two wickets in four games completed late last year in WICB’s 4-day tournament, which will be restarted after this 50-overs tournament, looked almost unplayable, ending with 4-12, “Man of Match”, as Volcanoes, winners in 2012/3, were doused for 85!
Guyana’s Jaguars will maul many a team with spin from Davendra Bishoo, Verasammy Permaul and Steven Jacobs, plus experienced, exciting captain Christopher Barnwell, now a much more accomplished cricketer than he gets credit for. For Guyana, spin is the real thing!
Jamaica is led by another left arm spinner, Nikita Miller, and with Suleiman Benn the incumbent in WI teams in SA, there are three main left-arm orthodox leg spinners twirling to be the chosen one.
Jason Holder’s first stint as WI ODI captain must have been nerve-wracking and exhilarating, but he should have gotten over that immediately after the he lost the toss for ODI #1 in Durban. After all, as a bowling all-rounder, he was more needed to bowl at the start of SA’s innings, but for a losing cause.
South Africa’s ODI captain, Abraham Benjamin de Villiers; “AB” to everyone except perhaps his parents; has recently been described as “the best cricketer in present day contemporary cricket.” That is not far from the truth at all. “AB” has been absolutely phenomenal, especially recently against West Indies!
152 and four catches in Test No. 1 at Centurion; 10 and one catch in Test No. 2 at Port Elizabeth; 148, one stumping and two catches in Test No. 3 at Cape Town; then “Man of Match” in ODI No. 1, with 81, four catches and one stumping; must have already made “AB” taste more like vinegar than beautiful SA wines to the WI tourists. Yet, WI still have four more games in which to face him in. What a thing!
50-over cricket is the hardest of the three formats to play properly. There is no slash, bang, wallop as in T-20’s, while Test matches are more chess games.
The trick, treat or threat of winning at ODI cricket is knowing when to attack and when to consolidate. Most teams never find that difference. Under “AB”, SA is trying hard to do just that!
On paper, WI lost ODI No. 1 by 61 runs on the Duckworth/Lewis method, having been set to get 226 in 32 overs, after rain had interrupted SA’s innings at 279-8 after 48.8 overs, a good WI bowling comeback, since SA were at one time 238-3 in over No. 40. But WI’s batsmen could not muster the needed goods!
All of WI’s bowlers leaked more than 5.0 runs per over, while only the indomitable Chris Gayle; 41 from 24 deliveries, five 4’s and two 6’s; and Denesh Ramdin, who made 31, looked like making proper efforts at the total required. It was not even close!
Pace, from Dale Steyn; 3-17; and right-arm leg-spin, from Imran Tahir; 3-30; pinned WI to the floor!
Jamaica’s Franchise did similarly to the severely disappointing, hapless Leeward Islands Hurricanes. There is great irony here, as it was the Hurricanes who were simply blown away by Jamaica!
Batting first, as expected, on a beautiful pitch, LI Hurricanes mustered only 115, mesmerized by the leg spin of Nakita Miller; 2-13; and truly talented right-arm leg-spinner Damien Jacobs, whose ten overs cost only 24 runs while getting three wickets. Jacobs is certainly one to watch for the future in WI cricket!
Yesterday’s game, Guyana Jaguars v Barbados Pride, was probably already a preamble to one semi-final, so sit back, relax, assimilate and appreciate ODI cricket at its best for the next several weeks. Enjoy! (E-mail: [email protected])
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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