It is not difficult to imagine Rangy Nanan going to his grave with a wry smile on his lips.
The most successful bowler in West Indies cricket, in a first-class career between 1973 and 1991, the heavy-set Trinidad and Tobago offspinner was restricted to a solitary Test by the numerical strength of Clive Lloyd's battering-ram pace attack that was the foundation of the team's record 15 years without losing a series.
Before his death on Wednesday, aged 62, after a lengthy battle against poor health, Nanan witnessed the sharp decline in West Indies fast-bowling stocks and the continuing futile fixation with replenishing them to the disadvantage of spin. Just days before Nanan's passing, Richard Pybus, West Indies Cricket Board's director of cricket, spoke of a series of camps and off-season training programmes for fast bowlers as "part of a plan to rekindle an area of the game that has been struggling in recent years".
"This is going to be central to us getting that [fast bowling] back at the heart of West Indies cricket again," he added.
Afghanistan kissed the World T20 goodbye by beating table-toppers West Indies by six runs in a low-scoring thriller. Asghar Stanikzai had shown his hand when he said they would use spin to restrict West Indies' big hitters on the eve of the match. Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan backed up their captain's confidence with figures of 2 for 26 each and kept West Indies to 117 in their chase of 124.
West Indies finished as the No. 1 team in Group 1 and will take on either India or Australia in the semi-final, but they will go to Mumbai with a sobering defeat. They became Afghanistan's second Full Member scalp in the tournament, after Zimbabwe, and the match was another strong reminder that cricket needed to be more inclusive.
West Indies required 40 runs from the last five overs, but Rashid had Denesh Ramdin stumped at the end of the 16th to tip the game off balance. Then it was Afghanistan who had to deal with a blow as fast bowler Hamid Hassan was pulled out of the attack. He was deemed to have bowled a second hip-high full toss by the square leg umpire, but Andre Russell, the batsman who had been struck by that ball, was rubbing his body below the waist.
Women cricketers have often spoken about the significance of strike rotation, as finding boundaries is not as easy as it is in the men’s game. Stafanie Taylor (47 in 45 balls) and Deandra Dottin (45 in 40), two of the most powerful and experienced batters in the circuit, did exactly that as they showcased their smarts during a 77-run partnership for the third wicket, as West Indies Women recorded a thrilling three-run win over India Women in a Group B game of the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 2016 at the PCA IS Bindra Stadium in Mohali on Sunday (March 27).
The Taylor-Dottin association was the fulcrum as West Indies scored 114 for 8 after being asked to bat. After that, the crowd, which turned up to witness the first-ever double header in India involving both the men’s and women’s teams, cheered the home team, and even if the batters put up a valiant fight, India was kept to 111 for 9.
Manish Patel, part-owner of the Jamaica Tallawahs franchise, believes the Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) Twenty20 Tournament has made tremendous strides towards boosting the Caribbean’s economy and Jamaica’s in particular.
Patel, who was in the island along with CPL’s CEO Damien O’Donohoe and other key partners, to meet with sponsors and government officials, revealed that last year’s staging alone contributed $8 million to the Jamaican economy.
He explained that the figure was accumulated from the four home games contested by the Jamaica Tallawahs at Sabina Park.
“In terms of direct investment, I think last year I believe the number was US$8 million, so if you look at the direct impact I think it was pretty significant. For four home games that is a huge impact, just the hotel finances, also for the stadium folks, and those in direct and indirect jobs with the CPL,” he told the Jamaica Observer in an interview at Sabina Park recently.
They had come to watch fireworks from AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle. Together, two of the men who could perhaps put on 300 in a 20-over match if things went their way, faced a total of 14 balls for 14 runs at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur. But Good Friday (March 25) still gave a ground packed almost to capacity its money’s worth with a low-scoring thriller.
Put in to bat, Faf du Plessis’s men couldn’t get too much right in putting on 122 for 8, not able to get the canny West Indian bowlers away on a pitch that had the ball stopping and not coming on to the bat. Then, its deep batting line-up notwithstanding, West Indies was made to fight for every run, and it came down to two young guns facing off in the final over with nine runs needed. Carlos Brathwaite missed the first ball from Kagiso Rabada, but a length delivery next up was smashed into the midwicket stands and West Indies squeezed home by three wickets in 19.4 overs.
