FORMER JAMAICA and West Indies left-arm spinner Nikita Miller is excited about imparting his knowledge of the game to the Caribbean side’s spin-bowling unit for the upcoming two-Test series against Pakistan.
The series is scheduled to run from January 17-29 at the Multan Cricket Stadium.
Miller was appointed assistant coach for the tour on the back of some impressive work with the West Indies in the recently concluded series against Bangladesh, which ended 1-1.
“I’m pretty excited. Having played at this level to now getting the opportunity to coach and sharing the knowledge that I’ve gained is really a great feeling,” he explained.
The West Indies, in their last visit to Pakistan in 2006-07, were defeated 2-0 in a three-match Test series. In what is expected to be favourable conditions for spinners, the Caribbean team have opted for the services of Jomel Warrican, Kevin Sinclair, and Gudakesh Motie to operate as specialist spinners. According to Miller, this is enough quality to cause problems for the Pakistani batters.
Cricket West Indies (CWI) is targeting an April 18 to May 11 window for the upcoming Regional T20 tournament, according to Director of Cricket Miles Bascombe.
He made the statement Tuesday evening on the popular Barbadian radio programme Mason and Guest.
While the blueprint of the tournament is still to be finalised, Bascombe indicated the focus would be on emerging Caribbean talents and noted that there might be limitations on experienced T20 players in the tournament.
He added that CWI has had extensive discussions about “age restrictions but not as drastic as under-23” given the short turnaround of T20 World Cups.
CWI president Dr Kishore Shallow said talk of the controversial two-tier model could be a “rumour”. He was speaking on the Mason and Guest programme on the Voice of Barbados, Tuesday night.
The main topic of that programme was the discussion with West Indies legends Sir Clive Lloyd and Michael Holding giving mixed reactions to the issue that has been discussed in the media regionally and globally.
But Shallow said the discussion has not come either at the International Cricket Council or the Cricket West Indies level since he has been a director at both organisations.
Shallow has been a CWI director since 2017 and at the ICC for the last two years. “This could easily be a rumour. From my position it has not been discussed…all I have seen is what you have seen in the media,” Shallow told host Andrew Mason.
He continued: “It’s interesting, it’s a sensitive issue-- based on my research that I have done-- that matter has been on the table since 2004 or thereabouts, when several individuals were looking at ways to keep Test cricket interesting,” adding, “That in itself shows how long people have been anticipating, considering Test cricket to be on the decline.”
SLAMABAD, Pakistan, (CMC) –Andre Coley says while the two-match Test series in Pakistan will be his last as head coach of the West Indies’ Test team, that is not his main focus.
Last month, Cricket West Indies announced that West Indies white ball head coach Daren Sammy would take over from Coley following the completion of the Pakistan series.
It will bring an end to a challenging tenure for Coley, who failed to win a single Test series during his 20 months in charge having been appointed in May, 2023.
When asked how he felt about it being his last series in charge, Coley said he would reflect on his time at the helm following the completion of the Pakistan series.
“I’m very disturbed about this…It must be stopped now.”
Legendary former West Indies cricket captain Clive Lloyd did not mince his words as he responded to a media report out of Australia yesterday that talks are planned to split Test-playing teams into two divisions.
A report in the Sydney Morning Herald has suggested that Australia, England, India and the International Cricket Council’s new chairman Jay Shah are in talks to split Test cricket into two divisions so the big three nations can play each other more often in series.”
The report noted that the concept of two tiers in Test cricket was previously floated at ICC level in 2016, with a model where seven nations would compete in the top division and five in the second rank.
It added that any plan for a move to two divisions in Test cricket would kick in after the end of the current Future Tours Programme in 2027.
However, Lloyd does not see West Indies, currently ranked eighth out of 12 Test teams, recovering if they were confined to a tier two.
“We cannot sustain the system with the money that we are acquiring at the moment,” Sir Clive told members of the regional and international media on a Zoom call yesterday. “We are in a very vulnerable situation. And now you are making us even poorer by what you are doing.”
