Wed, Nov 30, '05
(In The Papers Today: Fazeer Mohammed cautions against
going overboard with the Brian Lara celebrations; two former
Jamaica captains criticise the team's decision to accept bad
light...)
Commentator/columnist Fazeer Mohammed is on his knees
begging cricket fans in Trinidad & Tobago to avoid the urge to
use Brian Lara's latest world record as an excuse for a
lavish Carnival-type party.
"[What] is the sense in all of the impending celebration without
a meaningful commitment to giving the young people of Trinidad
and Tobago a chance to aspire to the heights that the national
hero has scaled?" Mohammed asked in a column published in today's
Trinidad Express.
Wed, Nov 30, '05
West Indies fast bowler Corey Collymore is scheduled to undergo
surgery in Melbourne, Australia to remove a bone spur in his right
patellar (knee) tendon, an injury that will rule him out of next
year's tour of New Zealand.
The injury to Collymore is a devastating blow to a team that has
struggled to take 20 wickets in a Test match. Collymore finished
with 8 wickets (avg. 36.50) in the three Tests against Australia
but the stats do not do justice to his value as the team's leading
pacer.
Tue, Nov 29, '05 by SEAN GILBERT
As is so often the case, the West Indies saved their best for
last, when the series was already decided. Although they were still
outclassed by Australia, Lara's double century ensured that the
match made it into the fifth day, no mean feat in recent times. In
fact, but for rather one sided display of shoddy umpiring the West
Indies could easily have drawn this match, and just possibly pulled
off a win.
The bright lights were Lara, of course, but also Bravo the
bowler and Bravo the batsman, Ramdin still looking the part of a
wicketkeeper batsman, and Corey Collymore's steadfast
professionalism. These were tempered by Chanderpaul's thoroughly
inadequate captaincy, the assorted failures of all the batsmen
except Lara, and the impotence of the young bowlers.
Tue, Nov 29, '05
There's at least one batting record still on Brian Lara's mind:
Don Bradman's world record 12 Test double centuries.
Just days after passing Allan Border's mark of 11,174 runs to
become Test cricket's all-time leadring run-scorer, Lara indicated
that Bradman's record is something to aim for.
Tue, Nov 29, '05
(In The Papers Today: Cricket writers take the ICC to
task for turning a blind eye to the poor performance of its 'elite'
umpiring panel...)
Veteran West Indies cricket writer Tony Cozier has broken
his silence on the quality of umpiring in the just-concluded Test
series against Australia, arguing that the Caribbean side was
"undermined" by "incompetent umpiring."
"Four times, they were victims of mistaken decisions by two
members of the International Cricket Council (ICC) elite
panel, a description that has come to have an increasingly hollow
ring to it," Cozier wrote in a column syndicated around the
region.