ESPNcricinfo presents the Best XI of CPL 2016, while adhering to the four-overseas-players rule. Jamaica Tallawahs lead the way, with three players in the XI
1. Johnson Charles - 441 runs, 143.18 strike rateAfter a relatively modest start to the season, Charles caught fire on the St Lucia Zouks' home leg, scoring 341 runs at an average of 56.83 over the final seven games of the season to put them in the CPL playoffs for the first time in four seasons. He finished as the second-highest run-scorer, after Chris Lynn.
2. Chris Gayle (capt)- 425 runs, 155.67 strike rateChris Gayle blew hot and cold throughout the season, but was positively scorching when he got going. He made the most of a dropped chance on 5 against Trinbago Knight Riders to score the highest score of the season, 108 not out. He ended up third overall on the run charts, while leading Jamaica Tallawahs to their second CPL title.
India lost their first wickets for 126 and their last five for 14, but between the two collapses R Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha added 213 runs to save their blushes. Ashwin scored his fourth century, all against West Indies and two in this series, and Saha attacked his way to a maiden Test century, which countered West Indies' plan to keep India from scoring freely on a slow outfield.
India's theoretical dislike of slow scoring, and some of the selections in Virat Kohli's Test team might leave you worried for the future of old-fashioned Test batsmen, but Saha and Ashwin continued to bat for the tribe after the rescue job on day one. While Ashwin, resuming on 75, gave India the solidity, it was Saha who played with intent against a limited West Indies attack happy to play the defensive game. Saha added 58 off 105 balls to his overnight 46 even as West Indies kept it tight at the other end.
Forty years later we can understand that famous English summer in a more nuanced way
For a 16-year-old Indian obsessed with cricket, the contest between Tony Greig's England and Clive Lloyd's West Indies in the summer of 1976 was a morality play in black and white, if you'll pardon the pun. Greig, South African born and raised, and as blond and white as one can get, had rashly promised to make West Indies "grovel". That a privileged child of apartheid could use such a word when about to commence a Test series against a team comprised of the descendants of slaves and indentured labourers was breathtaking in its lack of political or historical nous. Forty years from the events of that tumultuous time, it is an opportune moment to see how things looked back then and in what ways our perspectives may have changed.
The two teams could not have been more different when it came to charisma. England was a veritable Dad's Army with the likes of Brian Close, John Edrich and David Steele manning their top order, and even their younger lot - Peter Willey and Bob Woolmer for instance - seemed stodgy and reliable at best. West Indies, on the other hand, oozed flamboyance: Viv Richards, Alvin Kallicharran, Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge, Roy Fredericks, Collis King and Michael Holding, to mention only some. Like most teenage fans across the world, I did not merely want West Indies to win the series, I wanted to see them annihilate England.
After losing their top order cheaply on the first day of the third Test against West Indies, India bounced back through some hard graft, ending a day of attritional cricket on 234 for 5 from 90 overs on Tuesday (August 9). R Ashwin, batting on 75, was holding fort for India alongside Wriddhiman Saha, who had an unbeaten 46 to his name.
Ahead of this Test, much talk swirled around selection, and despite all the speculation, Virat Kohli showed that he had the element of surprise, twirling his captaincy wand and pulling a Rohit Sharma out of the hat. Ravindra Jadeja replacing Amit Mishra was on the cards, Bhuvneshwar Kumar coming in for Umesh Yadav was not a shock, but leaving M Vijay on the bench, and dropping Cheteshwar Pujara was a stunning, if unsuccessful, reflection of how modern captains think. At least this one, a firm believer in horses for courses.
As it turned out, the move didn't bear success, with Shikhar Dhawan being strangled down the legside by Shannon Gabriel, who has bowled with great verve and potency for unfairly little returns. The start was a rocky one for India and the move to fit Rohit into the batting order meant that Kohli promoted himself to No. 3. In four innings in that position Kohli has never made a half-century, scoring only 90 runs in all, as against No. 4, his natural spot, where he strikes at 50.64 and has eight centuries to go with four fifties.
West Indies will enter Tuesday’s third Test at the Darren Sammy National Cricket Stadium with a stronger line-up than matches played in Antigua and Jamaica and hoping to continue the momentum of the drawn Test at Sabina Park.
Chandrika has been a batting failure at the regional level and predictably has proven likewise on the international scene.
“Leon Johnson will open the batting tomorrow. He’s the next opener in the line, so he will come into the squad to replace Chandrika. I wish him the very best, hopefully he’ll get some runs,” Holder told the media in St Lucia today.
