“Worrell never made a crude or an ungrammatical stroke… Worrell was poetry.” -Sir Neville Cardus, the doyen of cricket writers
“So when half a million Australians lined the streets of Melbourne in their ticker tape farewell to Worrell and his men, they were not only paying a final tribute to the team's great achievements, they were recognizing the capacity and potential of equals both on and off the turf…He saw the many diverse elements of the West Indies as a whole, a common culture and outlook separated only by the Caribbean Sea.” -Sir Learie Constantine
“I have seen grown men break down and cry because they felt they had let him (Sir Frank Worrell), down…” -Roy Gilchrist, formerly West Indies controversial fast bowler, and the most feared in his time
After I graduated from Queens College and Bishops High School (after it became co-ed, of course), I proceeded to Cave Hill, Barbados to pursue my legal education, competing with some of the finest scholars. One of the first places I visited was Sir Frank Worrell’s gravesite. I wanted to pay tribute to one of the Commonwealth’s foremost heroes. I had read so much about this man. He was bigger than life, and was regarded as the most powerful unifying force in the West Indies and one of the most influential and greatest West Indians of all time, a quintessential Caribbean man.
You could feel his presence, even after his death. The fact that he died so young, (42 years), adds to his mystique. Later, the addition of the monuments of Sir Clyde Walcott and Sir Everton Weekes, who collectively formed the unique trinity called “the 3Ws,” all of whom were knighted for their services to cricket, completed the legend of these three great West Indies cricketers, who were born within a mile and eighteen months of each other in Barbados, delivered by the same midwife, and whose busts now stand beside each other.
Dhaka, Bangladesh (AFP) — Bangladesh have finally buried the hatchet with West Indies batting great Gordon Greenidge — nearly two decades after unceremoniously sacking him as head coach in the middle of the 1999 World Cup. The Bangladesh Cricket Board hosted a reception for Greenidge late Monday in Dhaka, reuniting the coach with his former players and the executives who dumped him. Greenidge led Bangladesh to the ICC Trophy title in Malaysia in 1997 and also steered the cricket minnows to their first World Cup. He was awarded honorary citizenship of Bangladesh in recognition of his achievements. But his relationship with cricket officials soured after he opposed Bangladesh's bid for Test status, a move he considered premature. Greenidge, who was sacked as Bangladesh prepared to play Pakistan in a World Cup fixture in England in 1999, had returned to Bangladesh just once since his sudden exit — until Monday's function. “The parting was disappointing. I would have liked to spend more time with Bangladesh cricket, but it wasn't to be. I have no ills, but these things happen,” Greenidge told reporters at the reception.
Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines and Chairman of the CARICOM subcommittee on cricket, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, is clearing the air on some misconceptions surrounding the latter organisation’s entreaty for a meeting with the International Cricket Council (ICC). According to Gonsalves, CARICOM had approached the ICC in a bid to ensure there was an understanding about what the heads of government were trying to achieve with its intervention in West Indies cricket. “All that we are doing with the ICC with respect to their position as the international body responsible for the superintendence of world cricket is to indicate to them broadly what our position is,” said Gonsalves in an interview with SportsMax.tv. “We (CARICOM) are moving to set up a legislative framework for the governance of West Indies cricket, this public good which has been run by a private entity, with an insufficient responsiveness and responsibility to the people – that’s what it is in a nutshell.
West Indies are set to host Bangladesh for three T20 internationals in August, with the second and third games to be held at the Central Broward Regional Park Stadium in Lauderhill, Florida. St Kitts is likely to be the venue for the first game.
A Florida stadium official confirmed to ESPNcricinfo earlier this year that Cricket West Indies (CWI) had reserved the dates to hold a set of matches, initially believed to be against Pakistan as a reciprocal arrangement following West Indies' agreement to play three T20Is in Karachi in April. But Bangladesh are already due to tour the West Indies in July - a tour pushed back from March due to it clashing with the World Cup Qualifier that West Indies took part in - for two Tests and three ODIs.
Cricket West Indies made the announcement a few days ago that legendary Pakistan leg spinner Mushtaq Ahmed would be coming to the Caribbean for a month to work with the spinners in the region.
Director of Cricket Jimmy Adams has also been quoted as saying that there are plans in the pipeline to engage his services for a longer period. The news comes right after the story broke that some of the top emerging fast bowlers in the region were involved in an ongoing camp in Antigua. That is good news. The benefits of these moves may not be immediate, but there will be benefits down the road. They may not always get the credit for it, but it shows that those who run West Indies cricket are still trying to create ways to improve our cricket.
Having said that, what I will say now may sound quite paradoxical. It may sound horribly pessimistic, but it is my belief that it is unlikely that we will turn the current crop of West Indies cricketers into world beaters. We can improve them, we can get them to perform at better levels than they are currently doing, we may turn one or two average players into really good ones, but we won't be able to get enough of them performing at elite levels for us to form a superteam and come close to those days when we ruled the roost. At the senior levels, habits and techniques and thought patterns are already pretty much set. You can tinker with those, but you can only do so much with cricketers, who are already set in their ways. I strongly feel that we have to concentrate on cricket at far lower levels.
