West Indies

Jermaine Lawson signs for Leicestershire

We could just reproduce the article about Fidel Edwards signing for Worcestershire, but can we really be bothered reading through it and changing the names?

It’ll be interesting to see what Leicestershire’s team will be like this season. At present they’re an intriguing mix of old, experienced foreigners and virtually untested young English players. We’re led to believe that this is a deliberate policy and it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out.

At any rate, it’s good to see a gaggle of young English players being given a chance. We’re used to watching Lancashire who’ve got a whole host of young players who might realistically expect to play for England one day, none of whom can get a game because the first team’s clogged up with ageing all-rounders.

How will the ageing all-rounders of tomorrow get enough experience to keep the ageing all-rounders of the day-after-tomorrow out of the side?

Fidel Edwards signs for Worcestershire

A good signing for Worcestershire, but perhaps an even better deal for Fidel Edwards.

The lack of West Indians appearing in county cricket is both a symptom of their current weakness, but also a cause. A great line of West Indians have broadened their cricketing education in England, from Learie Constantine in the Lancashire leagues of the Thirties to Brian Lara – who seemed to know quite a bit anyway in scoring 501 in a single innings.

But recently county cricket’s been awash with Australians and second-rate South Africans. Any new Australian Test batsman can be guaranteed to have eaten up county attacks for at least a couple of seasons. Mike Hussey and Phil Jaques have played over here for years. It’ll be no surprise when they’re not fazed by the conditions in 2009.

But West Indians have been missing these benefits. Edwards should learn a little about bowling while he’s in England, but he should also learn something about being a professional. Overseas pros are expected to perform because they’re the biggest names in the team.

Kumar Sangakkara said that philosophy helped his batting attain the rare heights of late. It’s up to Fidel Edwards how he responds, but he’s at least got a good opportunity here.

Twenty20 wicketkeeping

Do you want the better batsman or the better wicketkeeper behind the stumps for your team? That argument’s been represented by any number of individual duels over the years. Recently though, we think you’ll all agree that the better batsman’s been winning out, in general.

Blame Adam Gilchrist. He’s a great wicketkeeper, but his batting’s so spectacular it easily overshadows that fact. International sides want wicketkeepers who average 50 now, let alone 40. They’ll never get it because Gilchrist’s a one-off, but it won’t stop them trying.

But there might be some hope for the thoroughbred stumpers. Might Twenty20, that impure bastard version of the game, bring wicketkeeping skills to the fore once more?

Here’s our rationale – obliterate it in the comments with your usual gusto. How many batsmen do you need in Twenty20 cricket? How many do you really, really need? We reckon five – five specialists at any rate.

Presumably at least one of your five bowlers won’t be Tufnell-esque and presumably any eligible keepers are at least half-competent with the bat. If you’re serious about winning, then you don’t really want to be losing more than five wickets in 20 overs. Things aren’t going your way if that happens.

So you can fairly happily pick your best keeper. And you know what – there’s an added incentive.

In Twenty20 cricket, with scoring being so low and tight, batsmen get cheeky. It’s not totally unknown for them to take a run off a ball which goes straight through to the keeper. They like to jump around as well to disrupt the bowler’s line and length, coming down the pitch or batting out of their crease.

So wouldn’t it help if you had a keeper who was good enough to stand up to the stumps to fast-medium bowlers? No cheeky byes. No batting out of the crease. The wicketkeeper’s having a real impact there.

Twenty20: saviour of the wicketkeeping tradition. There’d be a touch of irony in that.

Dale Steyn spoils things in a pleasing way

Despite Shiv’s bat and Dwayne Bravo’s best efforts with the ball, South Africa look like getting a first innings lead. This is a shame because while the Windies might continue to put up a fight while ahead, you feel that they’re liable to crumble if they fall behind. You never know, mind.

The architect of the West Indies’ destruction was Dale Steyn. This is good, because the world needs fast bowlers, but as we said above, it’s bad for the match. He took 4-60.

We used to work with someone called Dale. He was small and ginger and was allegedly training to be a wrestler. Not that his hair colour had anything to do with it – he was going bald, you see.

On a barely-related training note, we’ve recently started ‘running’ again. ‘Running’ appears to be a form of bouncing walk from what we’ve achieved thus far. We’re pretty sure we’re doing it right.

Despite having calf muscles that are so minuscule as to be invisible to the naked eye, this ‘running’ has led to stiffness and pain in that area far in excess of what might realistically justified by the muscle mass.

We mention this only because we’re a ‘pom’ and therefore obliged to whinge. This is the first opportunity we’ve had to fulfil that remit in the last two years.

Australians can talk anyway. Who else would ever whinge about their Test side winning too often and too easily? Now that’s REALLY making an effort to whinge. At least the English have got some worthwhile whinging subject matter.

This post’s rather gone off-topic, hasn’t it?

Shivnarine Chanderpaul: Lord Megachief of Gold 2007

He’s got more than his fair share of elbows and knees, but that hasn’t prevented him being given the highest honour in international cricket; the award that the players most respect and yearn for. This year’s Lord Megachief of Gold is Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

England might have spent most of winter watching Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene do their thing, but every match they played against West Indies revolved around this man.

Chanderpaul started the year with 149 not out off 137 balls against India and pretty much took it from there. He averaged 76 in one-day internationals in 2007, hitting four unbeaten hundreds in 20 matches, but it was Test cricket where we spent most time watching him.

The West Indies played England this year and lost 3-0, but that was no fault of Shiv’s. His five innings in the series were 74, 50, 116 not out, 136 not out and 70. In the other Test he’s played this year, against South Africa, he hit 104 and, disappointingly, eight.

We saw that 116 not out at Old Trafford. Much of it was made on a fifth day pitch and in the company of tail-enders and it was an absolute masterpiece. A real, genuine, stand-the-test-of-time, against-the-odds masterpiece. It wasn’t first-day domination on a flat pitch, punishing the bowlers. It was an innings where the conditions, the bowling and the match situation were against him.

When the West Indies lost their last wicket, Shiv shook his head in disappointment. Never mind that he’d played a superlative innings, it was worthless to him. All he’d wanted was to succeed in what would have been a world record run-chase.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s the perfect example as to why you shouldn’t think of batsmen as solely one-day players or solely Test players until you’ve seen them in both formats.

If the first time you saw him was in a one-day international, playing the ball over the top and squirting it into ‘unusual areas’, you’d think he’d never make a Test player. You’d say his ‘technique’ was no such thing.

Conversely, if the first time you saw him was in a Test, as he batted for ten hours scoring about one run an over, you’d say he didn’t have the range of shots or the speed of scoring to warrant a place in a one-day side. Just goes to show that the best batsmen are adaptable.

It also shows that sidling around the crease like the Artful Dodger with rickets is no barrier to success.

Did Graeme Smith try to be clever?

South Africa are currently ranked second-best in the world. The West Indies are ranked second-worst. The Windies had also come into this Test on the back of defeat to South Africa A, so when Graeme Smith won the toss, he put his opponents in to bat. This didn’t turn out all that well.

People seem to think it looked like a ‘bowl first’ pitch, but we don’t know about that. The West Indies topped 400 after all and just how often do you bowl first? To us it was the kind of move that said South Africa were already certain that they were going to win and all they were concerned about was how they were going to do it. This is never the way to beat a team. Your attitude’s wrong for one, but there’s also the chance that you might rile your opponents into overachievement.

If it really was just a case of misreading the pitch, fine, but if the sensible move would have been to bat, Smith should have done that. Be cold and calculating about it, be clinical. Make your grand statements of intent from a position of strength.

Or just play better. You can overcome quite a lot, if you just do that.

The Chris Gayle era

The West Indies won a Test – and they were away.

The West Indian batting is still woefully fragile. Their fielding, while far-improved in this match, will surely take a good while longer to repair from what we’ve seen in the past – progress can only ever be so fast. Their seam bowling, however, really isn’t bad at all.

Long-term readers will know that we’ve rated Fidel Edwards for quite a while; Daren Powell’s been sending the ball where he intends it of late; Jerome Taylor’s quick and increasingly reliable; and Dwayne Bravo’s bowling record is totally unflattering and misleading. Oh and they’ve got a fifth seam bowler, Darren Sammy, who’s taken seven wickets in a Test innings before now. Handy back-up.

In truth, the Windies caught South Africa overconfident and, in the parlance of modern sport, undercooked – a number of the side had been granted overlong rests right up until this match. South Africa are unlikely to be so accommodating again.

Even so, the Windies don’t get away wins very often and maybe now they know what it’s like, they might make a bit more effort to do it again. Maybe the Chris Gayle era will be one characterised by professionalism, determination, effort and responsibility. Wouldn’t that be an irony tastier than the best of Christmas leftovers?

Windies’ early work keeps them on top

If there’s one cricketing nation that’s quite reliable, other than Australia, it’s South Africa – particularly at home. If there’s one cricketing nation which is quite unreliable, it’s currently the West Indies – particularly away from home.

So how did the Windies rack up 400 and then dispatch South Africa for under 200? Er, they played quite well. Sometimes it happens. They’re reverting to type a bit as we write, but they’re still in a strong position. At 146-8 they’re 350 ahead on a pitch where the scores have been progressively ensmallening, so they’re still okay.

Elsewhere India are letting everybody down, even the majority of Australian fans who are going to start going off cricket if something interesting doesn’t happen to their side soon.

There’ll probably be the odd update over the weekend, because we’re struggling to know what day it is at present. However, the big day’s Monday. We’ll be announcing the winner of our new, already highly-respected, annual award. So who will be granted the title Lord Megachief of Gold 2007? Meet us here on Monday to find out.

It’s Shiv and he’s scoring a hundred

We haven’t seen it, but we bet it was beautiful.

We could watch him play those lithe, supple shots all day. He doesn’t look at all like the chimney sweeps in Mary Poppins when he’s at the crease. He doesn’t rock from side-to-side like a dancing cockney when he ambles down the pitch. And he doesn’t jab his bat out in front of him like it’s an unwieldy, sooty, overlong brush.

He’s all poetry, is Shiv.

Zimbabwe not quite so bad, West Indies still really rather bad indeed

Zimbabwe have beaten the West Indies. As the result loomed, we were asked whether we were going to paint it as a Zimbabwean improvement or ‘the usual’. ‘The usual’ is of course when we say that if you so much as lose a wicket against Zimbabwe, you’re the worst cricketers to represent your nation.

Well, we’ve had a little look back over Zimbabwe’s recent record and we’re going to revise our stance ever-so-slightly. Zimbabwe are still more embarrassing than that home video of you trying to look cool at a classmate’s tenth birthday party, but they have improved. Slightly.

They beat Australia in the Twenty20 World Cup and you can’t really fluke a victory against Australia in any form of the game, no matter what Twenty20-haters might say. Also, in a recent series against South Africa, they consistently passed 200, even though they lost every match.

Passing 200 doesn’t sound like much of an achievement, but you forget who we’re talking about. This is Zimbabwe, the team that conceded 418-5 in a one-day match against South Africa; the team that against today’s opponents this time last year, were bowled out for 85; this is the team that were dismissed for 69 of the most redundant runs in cricket history against the towering might of Kenya.

As for the West Indies, it’ll come as no surprise to hear that the bowlers sprayed it every which way and that Shivnarine Chanderpaul hit an unbeaten hundred in defeat. People said that the Windies lost a lot when Lara retired, but what the hell are they going to do when Shiv goes? Shivnarine Chanderpaul is The Balls.

Good links in this post. Saying Zimbabwe are toss brings out the best in us.