Official West Indies Thread

[PhatBoy]

How Chase kept his spot in this side is anyone’s guess but here’s hoping he finds some sort of early incarnation of his test career

 

[PhatBoy]

Yeah, west indies are too strong. That's why nobody wants to play them. Wonder if they'd improve if place in test championship wasn't assured?!

Yes that’s what I said. That they are too strong. You argued well against a point no one made.

Their allocation in the FTP would probably remain largely the same. England have always toured there regularly. Australia played them sporadically before it and will barely do it afterwards. India did it infrequently but occasionally before it and will do so after it. What’s your point?

 

[PhatBoy]

For such an attractive front foot player, that was such a horrendous leave.

He probably already has a bit of Hope disease when he wears white clothes I suspect

 

[Nicho50]

That cover drive from King was as good as you will see then next ball one of the worst leaves you will see.

 

[Jack Mundy]

Yes that’s what I said. That they are too strong. You argued well against a point no one made.

Their allocation in the FTP would probably remain largely the same. England have always toured there regularly. Australia played them sporadically before it and will barely do it afterwards. India did it infrequently but occasionally before it and will do so after it. What’s your point?

No team should be guaranteed place in test cricket indefinitely. No incentive to get better and west indies haven't in a long while. No potential to grow outside existing nations either.

 

[PhatBoy]

No team should be guaranteed place in test cricket indefinitely. No incentive to get better and west indies haven't in a long while. No potential to grow outside existing nations either.

Yeah I think we are trying.

 

[Gethelred]

It's interesting watching Bumrah running in and comparing him to how he bowls in Australia. He's never a sprinter entering the crease, but today he's almost stopping at the crease.

 

[PhatBoy]

In still baffled that Kuldeep hasn’t played more test cricket

 

[Gethelred]

Ravi, WTF are you on about, you want pride back in WI cricket?

Get to playing at a decent level, grind out draws and force defeats, you compel respect and generate pride. The reason why there's no pride is because there's no group or individual success to latch onto.

It's not about ****ing pride. That's peacock bullshit.

 

[PhatBoy]

Should have just kept my mouth shut

 

[Gethelred]

In still baffled that Kuldeep hasn’t played more test cricket

'Til you remember who he was playing behind: two of the best spinners in history alongside India's greatest quicks ever.

He's McGill, stuck behind Warne.

 

[corbies]

Thread here

Test - West Indies Tour of India, October 2025 (2 Tests)

1st Test in Ahmedabad, 2nd Test in Delhi. XIs for the 1st Test. West Indies: Tagenarine Chanderpaul, John Campbell, Alick Athanaze, Brandon King, Shai Hope (wk), Roston Chase (capt), Justin Greaves, Jomel Warrican, Khary Pierre, Johann Layne, Jayden Seales India: KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal...

www.bigfooty.com

 

[PhatBoy]

'Til you remember who he was playing behind: two of the best spinners in history alongside India's greatest quicks ever.

He's McGill, stuck behind Warne.

Absolutely but 12 tests? And when they’ve picked Sundar a number of times (yes I realise he can bat) I’m just staggered he’s missed out as often as he has

 

[sherb]

Not sure on this bowling lineup. A 34 year old debutant? Lot's of heavy lifting for Seales up front and Warrican later on. Motie out of favour?

Australia has had a 38 yo debutant in my lifetime. And a 35 yo debutant as well now that I think of it.

So it's not completely unheard of. Mind you "my lifetime" extends over a fair time period..............

 

[PhatBoy]

How many teams come out and quadruple their previous total within a session plus change on the first morning of a series in India

 

[PhatBoy]

Is there a way I could just shut up

 

[Jack Mundy]

In still baffled that Kuldeep hasn’t played more test cricket

Probably typecast as a limited overs bowler for a little while

 

[PhatBoy]

Sammy had a bit of a moment in his presser before the second test that was interesting.

Gave me pause for thought.

On one hand there was an element of it that I thought was actually kind of pathetic. Almost like a beggar. The essence of it was ‘the West Indies gave so much to cricket at our peak and we’ve gotten nothing from it that we deserve in comparison to the big nations.’

Initially I thought ‘well this just sounds like a bloke who’s out of answers and wants to cry poor and make excuses.’ And to some extent he is. The West Indies never ever made a proper succession plan while the rest of the world was accepting the era of proper professionalism.

And I don’t really see what retrospectively he would expect to be done by way of compensation.

But aside from Kerry Packer, and whoever actually conceived the idea of the IPL he raises a reasonable point in terms of an overall contribution to what’s come out of cricket in the more modern era. Wherever they went, money and spectators followed. If they went anywhere they were box office and the hosts profited. Even their unofficial teams to SA made the hosts money. But the West Indies themselves didn’t seem to make much from it. More fool them I guess for being unable to harness what they had.

Then when T20 exploded it was them as much as, if not moreso, than anybody else who gave it impetus. At an international level they seemed to give it a kick along that it sorely needed and every second global T20 superstar that dominated the first decade was from the Caribbean. But at no stage were they able to turn it to their own advantage from a board perspective.

As I said I don’t really know what Sammy thinks the ‘world’ should do or should have done to reward the West Indies for all of this. Had it happened now they’d have been able to turn it into tv rights deals and the like and gambling sponsorships. I can see where his bitterness is coming from but I hope he doesn’t let it cloud his approach to his job. Motivate him maybe.

 

[Nicho50]

Sammy had a bit of a moment in his presser before the second test that was interesting.

Gave me pause for thought.

On one hand there was an element of it that I thought was actually kind of pathetic. Almost like a beggar. The essence of it was ‘the West Indies gave so much to cricket at our peak and we’ve gotten nothing from it that we deserve in comparison to the big nations.’

Initially I thought ‘well this just sounds like a bloke who’s out of answers and wants to cry poor and make excuses.’ And to some extent he is. The West Indies never ever made a proper succession plan while the rest of the world was accepting the era of proper professionalism.

And I don’t really see what retrospectively he would expect to be done by way of compensation.

But aside from Kerry Packer, and whoever actually conceived the idea of the IPL he raises a reasonable point in terms of an overall contribution to what’s come out of cricket in the more modern era. Wherever they went, money and spectators followed. If they went anywhere they were box office and the hosts profited. Even their unofficial teams to SA made the hosts money. But the West Indies themselves didn’t seem to make much from it. More fool them I guess for being unable to harness what they had.

Then when T20 exploded it was them as much as, if not moreso, than anybody else who gave it impetus. At an international level they seemed to give it a kick along that it sorely needed and every second global T20 superstar that dominated the first decade was from the Caribbean. But at no stage were they able to turn it to their own advantage from a board perspective.

As I said I don’t really know what Sammy thinks the ‘world’ should do or should have done to reward the West Indies for all of this. Had it happened now they’d have been able to turn it into tv rights deals and the like and gambling sponsorships. I can see where his bitterness is coming from but I hope he doesn’t let it cloud his approach to his job. Motivate him maybe.

Honestly it's not just the West Indies that is having trouble. You might get some close results or away team wins occasionally but even the "lesser" teams like NZ, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are not producing good test cricket on a consistent basis.

India have had a good record here in Australia over the last decade so you give them that but even England have not won a single test match here since 2011.

Personally I find the best test cricket anywhere has been the last 20 years England hosting Australia in the Ashes. You get the best results, drama, theatre and what the last couple or perhaps 3 series have been 2-2. There is something beautiful about watching test cricket in English conditions when the ball is seaming around.

As a kid growing up I loved watching the Australian Test Summer but it was all about watching the Waugh brothers, Warnie, McGrath, Ponting....

I loved watching the West Indies come out, 94-96 period as a kid for me was great with the team they had but sure enough around 98-2000 they were horrible, aside from maybe 1 ashes series I can't say I have ever really looked forward to a summer of tests more so than just having it on the background at work / home.

I know people always say Test cricket will never die but I reckon there will come a point in time where it will, the younger generation of kids growing up now want everything fast and easy, if franchises pay you triple the amount just for one tournament than you can get for a full year of international cricket they would be stupid not to take it up?

It is so hard right now at club level cricket to have players commit to play full stop let alone commit to play 2 day cricket. Who knows how long it will be maybe 10 years away? but there will be a point in time where a lot of people who grew up with ambitions of playing test cricket will be gone from the game and it is going to be full of Fraser McGurk types that grow up on franchise cricket, go in slog as hard as you can and get paid crazy dollars.

 

[sabso]

Sammy had a bit of a moment in his presser before the second test that was interesting.

Gave me pause for thought.

On one hand there was an element of it that I thought was actually kind of pathetic. Almost like a beggar. The essence of it was ‘the West Indies gave so much to cricket at our peak and we’ve gotten nothing from it that we deserve in comparison to the big nations.’

Initially I thought ‘well this just sounds like a bloke who’s out of answers and wants to cry poor and make excuses.’ And to some extent he is. The West Indies never ever made a proper succession plan while the rest of the world was accepting the era of proper professionalism.

And I don’t really see what retrospectively he would expect to be done by way of compensation.

But aside from Kerry Packer, and whoever actually conceived the idea of the IPL he raises a reasonable point in terms of an overall contribution to what’s come out of cricket in the more modern era. Wherever they went, money and spectators followed. If they went anywhere they were box office and the hosts profited. Even their unofficial teams to SA made the hosts money. But the West Indies themselves didn’t seem to make much from it. More fool them I guess for being unable to harness what they had.

Then when T20 exploded it was them as much as, if not moreso, than anybody else who gave it impetus. At an international level they seemed to give it a kick along that it sorely needed and every second global T20 superstar that dominated the first decade was from the Caribbean. But at no stage were they able to turn it to their own advantage from a board perspective.

As I said I don’t really know what Sammy thinks the ‘world’ should do or should have done to reward the West Indies for all of this. Had it happened now they’d have been able to turn it into tv rights deals and the like and gambling sponsorships. I can see where his bitterness is coming from but I hope he doesn’t let it cloud his approach to his job. Motivate him maybe.

Sounds like Sammy is like west coast wanting assistance packages out the wazoo because they used to be good but they’re poorly run now

 

[PhatBoy]

Sounds like Sammy is like west coast wanting assistance packages out the wazoo because they used to be good but they’re poorly run now

It was a bit different to that bit I take your point.

It just came across as sort of like ‘well we are unlucky to be shit now while all the big teams are good now when the money is great so they can all line their pockets, why don’t we get backpay for keeping things going when you were all shit’ but he hadn’t thought of it until now because his team is out of anything else to cling onto

 

[Gough]

Fingers crossed for everyone in Jamaica.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

I don't know how many of you are aware of Jarrod Kimber, the Aussie cricket data analyst - worked for several pro teams, ex journalist for nearly a decade for CricInfo, filmmaker - helped produce the award winning film on cricket called Death of Gentleman, was editor of cricket SPIN Magazine, prolific podcasters, works with talkSport radio in London and has written 7 cricket books - the last one the Art of batting where he and co author rank the best 50 test batsmen, interviewing nearly all of those in the book who are still alive and others who would give their opinion on the list of 100 they had drafted up. He has been living in the UK for 6 or 7 years.

I discovered Jarrod about 3 or 4 years ago when I saw his video analysing Neil Wagner's impact on test cricket and thought no one else is doing this in the main stream media and I haven't seen any podcasters doing this sort of analysis.

I watched this Jarrod Kimber video last night when the cricket was being rained out, analysing the depressing dive down the ladder of West Indies cricket this century.

I knew the bowling was up to Test standard over most of the last 25 years, but I didn't realise how bad the batting has been for nearly all of the 25 years.

Kimber puts some basic graphs up on his black board. I thought Windies batting got really bad from about 2010 after Lara had left the scene and Chiv Chanderpaul was near the end of his career and Ramnaresh Sarwan had retired and Marlon Samuels and Chris Gayle were becoming less effective at test level.

In his batting analysis he removes extras and for bowling removes runouts to calculate averages.

At 11.11 of the video Kimber says that in 2025 the Windies are averaging 18 runs per wicket when batting and the global average is 32 runs per wicket. EIGHTEEEEEEEN!!!! in my best Anthony Hudson voice.

He says since 2000, the Windies average 28 runs with the bat and taking wickets at 36 runs. In a game that all 40 wickets fall to the bowlers that means the Windies are 160 runs off the bat worse than the opposition on average for all of 25 years!!

In the last few minutes of the 15 minute video, he goes back to the 4 batsmen who debuted in 2000 - Gayle, Sarwan, Hinds and Samuels, and Kimber says that since Ramnaresh Sarwan debuted in 2000, the Windies have not come up with at least 1 above average batting prospect to actually play for them.

Earlier in the video he said between 2004 and 2010 there were no Windies batsmen who debuted in those 6 years who made 1,000 test runs. Its actually 2004 to late 2010.

At the end of 2010 Darren Bravo debuts and in 2011 Kraigg Brathwaite debuted. He says Brathwaite is the only one that is close to replacing Sarwan's output and Darren Bravo could have got there, but for some reason didn't and he doesn't know why.
Brathwaite played 94 tests 5742 runs at 33.57 and Bravo 56 tests 3538 runs at 36.47.

This is the best analysis I've seen on what has really wrong has gone wrong with West Indies cricket. Its not the head coach and ex stars like Lloyd, Richards, Garner etc that haven't contributed.

The ICC and the cricket world really need to put in great batting coaches into the Caribbean and make sure they are on all the island nations or 1 great coach for every 2 or 3 nations and he splits his time between them. They need to talent identify kids at 12, 14 and 16 years of age and put resources into the kids ie money for clothing, equipment, travelling and accommodation expenses so they can travel to the centre of excellences on their island, where they can train with the specialist batting coach. Send them to Oz, South Africa, England, India each year so they can play games on different types of pitches and face a wider pool of bowlers.

Something serious, with some serious $$$ attached to it, has to be done to reverse this downward spiral.

 

[PhatBoy]

I don't know how many of you are aware of Jarrod Kimber, the Aussie cricket data analyst - worked for several pro teams, ex journalist for nearly a decade for CricInfo, filmmaker - helped produce the award winning film on cricket called Death of Gentleman, was editor of cricket SPIN Magazine, prolific podcasters, works with talkSport radio in London and has written 7 cricket books - the last one the Art of batting where he and co author rank the best 50 test batsmen, interviewing nearly all of those in the book who are still alive and others who would give their opinion on the list of 100 they had drafted up. He has been living in the UK for 6 or 7 years.

I discovered Jarrod about 3 or 4 years ago when I saw his video analysing Neil Wagner's impact on test cricket and thought no one else is doing this in the main stream media and I haven't seen any podcasters doing this sort of analysis.

I watched this Jarrod Kimber video last night when the cricket was being rained out, analysing the depressing dive down the ladder of West Indies cricket this century.

I knew the bowling was up to Test standard over most of the last 25 years, but I didn't realise how bad the batting has been for nearly all of the 25 years.

Kimber puts some basic graphs up on his black board. I thought Windies batting got really bad from about 2010 after Lara had left the scene and Chiv Chanderpaul was near the end of his career and Ramnaresh Sarwan had retired and Marlon Samuels and Chris Gayle were becoming less effective at test level.

In his batting analysis he removes extras and for bowling removes runouts to calculate averages.

At 11.11 of the video Kimber says that in 2025 the Windies are averaging 18 runs per wicket when batting and the global average is 32 runs per wicket. EIGHTEEEEEEEN!!!! in my best Anthony Hudson voice.

He says since 2000, the Windies average 28 runs with the bat and taking wickets at 36 runs. In a game that all 40 wickets fall to the bowlers that means the Windies are 160 runs off the bat worse than the opposition on average for all of 25 years!!

In the last few minutes of the 15 minute video, he goes back to the 4 batsmen who debuted in 2000 - Gayle, Sarwan, Hinds and Samuels, and Kimber says that since Ramnaresh Sarwan debuted in 2000, the Windies have not come up with at least 1 above average batting prospect to actually play for them.

Earlier in the video he said between 2004 and 2010 there were no Windies batsmen who debuted in those 6 years who made 1,000 test runs. Its actually 2004 to late 2010.

At the end of 2010 Darren Bravo debuts and in 2011 Kraigg Brathwaite debuted. He says Brathwaite is the only one that is close to replacing Sarwan's output and Darren Bravo could have got there, but for some reason didn't and he doesn't know why.
Brathwaite played 94 tests 5742 runs at 33.57 and Bravo 56 tests 3538 runs at 36.47.

This is the best analysis I've seen on what has really wrong has gone wrong with West Indies cricket. Its not the head coach and ex stars like Lloyd, Richards, Garner etc that haven't contributed.

The ICC and the cricket world really need to put in great batting coaches into the Caribbean and make sure they are on all the island nations or 1 great coach for every 2 or 3 nations and he splits his time between them. They need to talent identify kids at 12, 14 and 16 years of age and put resources into the kids ie money for clothing, equipment, travelling and accommodation expenses so they can travel to the centre of excellences on their island, where they can train with the specialist batting coach. Send them to Oz, South Africa, England, India each year so they can play games on different types of pitches and face a wider pool of bowlers.

Something serious, with some serious $$$ attached to it, has to be done to reverse this downward spiral.

The average this year is irrelevant, for starters: the other points are fine, and relevant, but just getting in early?

They have played 7 tests this year.

2 of them were in India and in the second of them they made 640 runs for the match and reached almost 400 in the second innings. No visiting team has done that for something like a decade in India. So we can forget that one anyway. Two batsmen made centuries and another made a 50.
In the first test we failed on a reasonably fair pitch, though as the coverage of the game suggested, we batted when it offered help to Bumrah and Siraj, bowled when it flattened out, then batted again when it broke up for Jadeja and Co.
still, we were poor in that test.


Where Kimber’s point about averages this year means nothing really arises in the previous 5 tests.
The 3 against Australia? Everyone saw what those pitches were like for all batsmen. They were tough. Combine that with an attack of Starc, Hazlewood, Cummins and then Boland in the last test and of course it was tough. Australia didn’t average much more and if the WI could catch, would have lost the first test themselves.

The two tests before those?

They were played on Pakistan wickets which the hosts openly declared had been specifically prepared to rag sideways from ball one. Pakistan got the benefit of winning the toss in the first test and made enough runs to win.

Guess what? After being 7-37 an hour into the second test, the West Indies won the second.

Our batting is inferior to the rest of the world, I have no problem at all admitting that, but you can’t produce a video about batting numbers and focus on such a huge disparity when 5 of your 7 tests in a calendar year have been played on pitches that by any measure have seen the opposition struggle nearly as much and then use THOSE numbers to try and formulate your conclusion.

If anything it probably serves to highlight one of the reasons we have struggled to produce good batsmen, because the pitches don’t really promote it in the West Indies.


The other stuff has been discussed ad nauseum