Lendl Simmons continues a rich West Indian tradition

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All right Mrs Simmons, is your Lendl playing out today?Lendl Simmons continues the rich West Indian tradition of having a first name to die for.

Just think of the greats who’ve represented the islands: Curtly, Tino, Reon and Vasbert. Our own personal favourite is ‘Wavell’.

There’s a great way to test how good a first name is; you simply insert it into the following sentence:

“All right Mrs [insert surname]. Is your [insert first name] playing out today?”

If we have a son, he’s going to be called ‘Bartington’ and if we have a second child, it’s going to be called ‘The Colonel’ – regardless of gender.

DON'T BE LIKE GATT!

Mike Gatting wasn't receiving the King Cricket email when he dropped that ludicrously easy chance against India in 1993.

Coincidence?

Why risk it when it's so easy to sign up?

13 comments

  1. My favourite has always been Curtly, but only because of the way the full name rolls off the tongue.

    Mmm.. Curtly Ambrose.

    [Nixon McLean was also pretty awesome.]

  2. so, your kids friends will be coming round and asking… ‘ hello mrs king cricket, is it ok if i come in and play with the colonel’…..

  3. I suspect that the Simmons parents are a smidge disappointed that he has opted for cricket rather than tennis.

    My folks were going to name me Laver Ladd but decided against it at the last minute.

  4. Bartington ??
    Does the lady of the house know about it ??
    I have a nephew called ‘Duke’ so The Colonel is OK.

  5. Name two West Indian Test players with the same first names. I’ll be impressed if there are more than four pairs. Courtneys Walsh and Browne are the only two I can think of immediately.

  6. Dwayne Smith and Dwayne Bravo.

    Darren Ganga, Darren Sammy and (if you’ll forgive the slightly different spelling) Daren Powell.

    Devon Smith and Devon Malcolm (the latter being England test player of West Indian origin rather than West Indian test player of course).

    Marlon Black and Marlon Samuels.

    Heck, I then got bored and looked up the list – here’s the list.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_West_Indies_Test_cricketers

    Some stato can look up similar lists of other test nations and I’m sure will conclude that West Indies has the biggest first name spread in the world.

    I’m with you, e normous – Vasbert Drakes rocks. But he should have been a 17th century sea-faring explorer rather than a West indian cricketer with that name.

  7. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was that too… and where is he now, anyway? Sailing the high seas, no doubt.

    That list mentioned above has reminded me of Runako Morton. Kind of funny name.

    I know Dave Mohammed has a bunch of fans too…

  8. I wouldn’t mind if you all stop laughing at the name Vasbert. It seems perfectly sensible to me.

  9. The standard West Indian christening service begins with the priest blessing the bag of scrabble tiles, following which the parents say the ceremonial words “Consonant, please Carol.”

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