Official West Indies Thread

[Plugger35]

Glad to be of service, I haven't been following this test series much but it's good to see Holder rediscovering some batting form.

It's not that I didn't rate him as a batsman but his form dropped off a cliff, now it's Da Silva's form that has dropped off a cliff.

Such is the fickle nature of West Indies cricket.

 

[sabso]

Glad to be of service, I haven't been following this test series much but it's good to see Holder rediscovering some batting form.

It's not that I didn't rate him as a batsman but his form dropped off a cliff, now it's Da Silva's form that has dropped off a cliff.

Such is the fickle nature of West Indies cricket.

Da Silva's form dropping off a cliff is a function of having played against England the previous series.

He averages 50.57 against England and 21.15 against everyone else.

 

[PhatBoy]

In addition to already thinking we’d made a mistake - as had SA for that matter - in picking two spinners after a session and a bit of watching based purely off the pitch I was puzzled when I looked through some of the commentary today to catch up as to why Brathwaite made some of the bowling changes that he did after they were 9 down ie. bringing Motie on (though he ultimately got the wicket) but Joseph at one point had to leave the field with cramp and Seales said tonight in the pre-game that the heat was a huge factor on day 1 in response to an unrelated question so I guess after more or less rotating unchanged between themselves for 40 overs with a bit of help from Warrican it was understandable

 

[PhatBoy]

Ultimately to some degree I don’t suppose 9-10-11 matters THAT much which order they bat in but it’s an ongoing source of bemusement as to why Joseph is batting behind Warrican to some extent and Seales in particular.

They did mention in fairness to Seales that he’s played the Roach role well enough in the past of plugging up an end but Burger is 6’2, left arm, bowling 140 clicks and Joseph comes in and pulls him, square drives him, and then lifts him for six over long on in consecutive deliveries.

 

[PhatBoy]

Rabada shin high full toss outside off
Joseph massive swing miscued to cover on the bounce
Joseph: “Ahhhhh F**K!!”
Ian Bishop: “…….. we apologise to our viewers for what you just heard through your stump mic.”

 

[PhatBoy]

Wow.
Didn’t have high hopes for how this might play out but we might just have an outside chance here yet. 3-5 to start the day - 5-fer for Seales.

We are building a good bowling group, if nothing else. He’s really putting together a good body of work in his career so far, and MOSTLY, he is a little less inclined to bowl the sort of garbage that can impact on the Josephs in between their threatening spells.

61 wickets at 24 in his 14 tests to date, strike rate of 40.

Roach won’t be around for much longer but:

Roach
Alzarri Joseph
Shamar Joseph
Jason Holder
Jayden Seales
Gudakesh Motie
Jomel Warrican

That’s a good rotation to select from

 

[PhatBoy]

Wow, 5-26 and no issues finishing the tail. Wonders will never cease. Great finish by Seales, awesome caught and bowled to get rid of Burger at the end.

Still favour SA just because of how brittle we are but it’s gettable. Need one big score, who the hell will stand up and deliver it

 

[Cleavy]

that 10th wicket partnership in the 1st innings proved vital

 

[PhatBoy]

that 10th wicket partnership in the 1st innings proved vital

Yep. Though so did ours, to be fair. They put on 63, we put on 41 so both teams were guilty: oddly the West Indies have been the most effective team in test matches at cleaning up the tail in the last 4 years I think they said overnight.

Well another underwhelming top order effort but not an unsurprising one and probably a befitting finish to a series between two sides with brittle batting line ups but SA’s has a little more going for it than ours. Can WI selectors PLEASE not use this as an excuse to dump the players they’ve been trying and go back to the noted regular failures.

The bowling is a building block, it gets a tick from the Australian, English and SA series.

 

[PhatBoy]

Just the random Phat Boy local update as the 4-day championship restarts for 2025.

A couple of blow-outs; the Academy side didn’t cover itself in glory against Leeward Islands and got belted, Guyana beat Barbados by 10 wickets, Jamaica who have struggled a lot in recent years had a good start beating Windwards by 178 and T & T beat Combined Colleges and Campuses by an innings

There were a few interesting individual performances.

Sadly yet another of them came from
Jason Mohammed who got his 14th FC hundred (176) for Trinidad though Jyd Goolie hit his second.

One eyebrow raiser for the Australia series may be Jermaine Blackwood. He hit 109 and 75 for Jamaica against Windwards. Given that he actually has decent test experience, and how bad the middle order is going, and one test will likely be in Jamaica, it would not be a total shock if he has a big summer if they regressed and picked him.

In the Guyana Barbados game two players stood out:
Kevlon Anderson from Guyana hit his third century in 15 games. He’s one of the rare West Indian players who averages over 40 at domestic level so he’s started his career off on a solid path.
Tag Chanderpaul for the record made starts both innings (they were only chasing 80 on the second and he made 40*)
Matthew Forde made 80 for Barbados in their first innings then with the new ball took 5-69 off 20 in Guyana’s first innings.

That was his first class debut.
He’s already played a handful of ODIs.

In the other game against the Academy side, Leewards made 350, no huge scores though a young left arm spinner Joshua Bishop took 7 wickets. They folded cheap in reply, then Jewel Andrew who is now 18 and has to be fast tracked into each West Indies squad, smacked 58 off 49, they declared and bowled the Academy out for 100.

So interesting enough but gee I’m sick of seeing spin take so many wickets

 

[Cmarsh]

Just the random Phat Boy local update as the 4-day championship restarts for 2025.

A couple of blow-outs; the Academy side didn’t cover itself in glory against Leeward Islands and got belted, Guyana beat Barbados by 10 wickets, Jamaica who have struggled a lot in recent years had a good start beating Windwards by 178 and T & T beat Combined Colleges and Campuses by an innings

There were a few interesting individual performances.

Sadly yet another of them came from
Jason Mohammed who got his 14th FC hundred (176) for Trinidad though Jyd Goolie hit his second.

One eyebrow raiser for the Australia series may be Jermaine Blackwood. He hit 109 and 75 for Jamaica against Windwards. Given that he actually has decent test experience, and how bad the middle order is going, and one test will likely be in Jamaica, it would not be a total shock if he has a big summer if they regressed and picked him.

In the Guyana Barbados game two players stood out:
Kevlon Anderson from Guyana hit his third century in 15 games. He’s one of the rare West Indian players who averages over 40 at domestic level so he’s started his career off on a solid path.
Tag Chanderpaul for the record made starts both innings (they were only chasing 80 on the second and he made 40*)
Matthew Forde made 80 for Barbados in their first innings then with the new ball took 5-69 off 20 in Guyana’s first innings.

That was his first class debut.
He’s already played a handful of ODIs.

In the other game against the Academy side, Leewards made 350, no huge scores though a young left arm spinner Joshua Bishop took 7 wickets. They folded cheap in reply, then Jewel Andrew who is now 18 and has to be fast tracked into each West Indies squad, smacked 58 off 49, they declared and bowled the Academy out for 100.

So interesting enough but gee I’m sick of seeing spin take so many wickets

Good to hear Chanderpaul is back in the runs.

 

[PhatBoy]

Good to hear Chanderpaul is back in the runs.

Probably a make or break period for him

 

[Cold Sober]

Cricket needs and is a better watch when The Windies are up and about.

 

[PhatBoy]

Cricket needs and is a better watch when The Windies are up and about.

Bowling continues to improve. Forde’s debut was another real shot in the arm but the batting needs to see a huge step forward this domestic season. Would love to see some big runs from the Academy and C&C sides

 

[cricketnut14]

Cricket needs and is a better watch when The Windies are up and about.

love the west indies when they are up and about.

was stated on SEN the other day that the upcoming WI v aust could be the last test series between the 2 nations.

let's hope not.

 

[Cmarsh]

love the west indies when they are up and about.

was stated on SEN the other day that the upcoming WI v aust could be the last test series between the 2 nations.

let's hope not.

Sports media like SEN and foxsports are clickbatey. That is just sensationalist nonsense to claim that.

 

[PhatBoy]

Sports media like SEN and foxsports are clickbatey. That is just sensationalist nonsense to claim that.

Ridiculous notion.

Not saying it will actually happen or is a ‘good’ shot of happening but there’s an outside chance we pinch a test - if it can happen at the Gabba it can certainly happen at home. We got close to SA, we generally beat England, we always draw or beat Sri Lanka or Pakistan when we host them, we simply don’t play NZ there anymore. Just please can we not serve up spinning decks for the love of God.

 

[Cleavy]

was stated on SEN the other day that the upcoming WI v aust could be the last test series between the 2 nations.

let's hope not.

presumably that would only be if the ICC moved to a 2 tier Test setup?

 

[PhatBoy]

presumably that would only be if the ICC moved to a 2 tier Test setup?

There are so many results that contradict the idea of a two tier format that it just makes a mockery of the notion.

In a sport like soccer where it’s 90 minutes and a goal can decide a game, a tier two (championship) team beating a tier one (premier league) team can easily be explained away. This is test cricket. It’s played over up to 5 days and multiple matches. You don’t fluke a win with one goal.

But just in the last cycle alone there are numerous citations that straight away destroy any credibility the argument has.

The initial idea was that the Windies and Bangladesh should drop.

Well the Windies drew away series with the reigning world champions who are also in the current final, and Pakistan who are mooted to be a tier one side.

Bangladesh whitewashed Pakistan who are a tier one side. Away.
Bangladesh drew at home with New Zealand. A tier one side.

So there’s four examples immediately of the two teams they initially earmarked to drop out that don’t hold water.

You’re supposed to drop them because THEY CANT COMPETE!! So if they’re competing, why are they being excluded?

Then, Bangladesh finished 7th.

So if they’re in the top 7, how do you drop them?

That’s evidence piece number 5.

So that leaves Pakistan who finished last.

They won a series against England who finished 5th.
They also won a series - away - against Sri Lanka, who finished 6th.

Two more pieces of evidence.

That’s 7 pretty conclusive cases from the two mooted teams, plus the circumstantial team, as to why they should not be dropped from the top tier.

That’s just from series where they won matches and drew the series or won it.

That doesn’t include:

• Pakistan going within a bee’s dick (and let’s be honest they SHOULD have won the first test) of drawing the series away in South Africa
• Bangladesh drawing away in West Indies which yes is a bit of a cripple fight in this context but they have never won a series there
• West Indies drawing the first test with SA and losing the second by 40
• Bangladesh had NZ 6-70 chasing 140 to level the series before Mitchell and Philips bailed them out to make it 1-1 otherwise you could add a 2-0 win to their 2-0 win over Pakistan.

Two tiers makes no f**king sense

 

[cricketnut14]

Two tiers makes no f**king sense

i guess the problem has been consistency with the above teams as there's no doubt anyone can beat anyone on their day.

promotion/relegation appears the fairest way if they go the way of a 2 tiered system, but that's unlikely to happen.

playing devils advocate, pakistan, west indies and bangladesh have finished in the bottom 3 in all 3 wtc cycles to date.
*note: pakistan finished 4th last in the first cycle.

W=L record in WTC:
WI 39 10-23 6
Bang 31 5-24 2
Pak 40 13-20 7

we eagerly await the test fixture for 2027 and beyond in which all teams can be kept happy.

 

[PhatBoy]

i guess the problem has been consistency with the above teams as there's no doubt anyone can beat anyone on their day.

promotion/relegation appears the fairest way if they go the way of a 2 tiered system, but that's unlikely to happen.

playing devils advocate, pakistan, west indies and bangladesh have finished in the bottom 3 in all 3 wtc cycles to date.
*note: pakistan finished 4th last in the first cycle.

W=L record in WTC:
WI 39 10-23 6
Bang 31 5-24 2
Pak 40 13-20 7

we eagerly await the test fixture for 2027 and beyond in which all teams can be kept happy.

That’s fine but it’s 6 years.

At what point in the history of test cricket has there been a block of 6 years where all sides have been consistently able to beat each other when they’ve been consistently playing each other (which is another part of the wtc that is ignored - all the sides aren’t consistently playing each other)

And at what point of test history HASNT there been sides at the bottom of the pile that struggled for long periods.

From the start of 1993 until the end of 1998 - and this was literally just an arbitrary time frame punched into Howstat off the top of my head, I’m sure if you wanted to narrow it down to a specific one maybe starting in 1992 to include Sri Lanka’s losses to Australia you could make it look worse.

NZ won 10 out of 48 tests - and 2 were against Zimbabwe.

England won 16 out of 70 tests. They lost 30 - and 22 of those defeats were by an innings, 8 or more wickets, or 200+ runs. They were shocking. And one series in total, against the Kiwis.

Sri Lanka won 11 out of 45 tests. They actually drew quite a few, their percentage wasn’t as bad - they lost 17.


These periods happen. And that period included England who had already been around for 116 years at that stage, and the Kiwis who had been around for nearly 70. Ironically it was the Lankans who were still in their relative infancy who were faring the best.

They want to virtually ‘legislate’ for want of a better term, against the nature of national sport.

 

[cricketnut14]

one good sign for WI is that they have some test series upgraded from a 2 test series ahead v australia and a tour to NZ.

this will be the first nations other than england since the WTC started.

 

[PhatBoy]

Gough
Bannerman alert alert

May I present to you Mr Kavem Ajoel Rakem Hodge.

Earlier today representing the Windward Islands against Trinidad and Tobago he managed to produce the small matter of 126 runs from his team’s total of 166.

The next highest score being opener Stephen Pascal’s 9.

This made for a total of 76 per cent of his team’s total.

Not a test, but a damn good asterisk under the auspices of the greatest record known to cricket followers.

Hail Kavem. Hail.

 

[ioppolo]

Gough
Bannerman alert alert

May I present to you Mr Kavem Ajoel Rakem Hodge.

Earlier today representing the Windward Islands against Trinidad and Tobago he managed to produce the small matter of 126 runs from his team’s total of 166.

The next highest score being opener Stephen Pascal’s 9.

This made for a total of 76 per cent of his team’s total.

Not a test, but a damn good asterisk under the auspices of the greatest record known to cricket followers.

Hail Kavem. Hail.

Is that a FC record? The only other one I can think of is Glenn Turner's 124 or so out of a team score of 187 and this surpasses that.

 

[PhatBoy]

Is that a FC record? The only other one I can think of is Glenn Turner's 124 or so out of a team score of 187 and this surpasses that.

Good get in that Glenn Turner is right up there - he is third all time with 141 out of 169 for 83.4 per cent. And the highest for a completed team innings.

Laurence Fishlock from Surrey hit 93 out of 1-104 against the touring Australians in 1938 for the overall record.