Alzarri Joseph, the West Indies fast bowler, is to join Worcestershire as their overseas player for the opening weeks of the 2021 season.
Joseph, who is currently playing against Sri Lanka in the first Test in Antigua, will fly into the UK from the Caribbean on April 4, and will be available to Worcestershire for their first seven County Championship fixtures.
The ongoing Test is Joseph's 15th, in which he has claimed 34 wickets, in addition to a further 54 in 34 ODIs. He was part of the West Indies squad that toured England during last summer's bio-secure Test series, claiming three wickets in his two Test appearances at Southampton and Manchester.
"I am thrilled to be joining Worcestershire for the early part of the summer," Joseph said.
Cricket West Indies (CWI) incumbent, Ricky Skerritt, has dismissed threats from presidential candidate Anand Sanasie as part of a ‘hopeful’ strategy designed to disqualify him from seeking re-election.
Earlier this week, Sanasie admitted to beginning procedures to bring Skerritt before the CWI Ethics Committee. If the complaint is ignored at the regional level, the Guyana Cricket Board Secretary has not ruled out instructing his attorneys to bring the matter before the International Cricket Council (ICC).
“He is creating an illusion that somehow I will be disqualified from the election,” Skerritt told Sports Grill.
Legendary West Indies batsman, Viv Richards, was hesitant to compare the talent of players currently available to the West Indies team, with those in his heyday, as he believes eras are simply too different.
Richards represented the West Indies for close to two decades, following his debut in 1974. For the majority of his career, the Windies were known as the world’s best cricket team, securing two World Cups during that time.
The Master Blaster, as he is otherwise known, played alongside some of the game’s greatest players, the likes of Clive Lloyd, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge, and bowlers Malcolm Marshal, Joel Garner, Collin Croft, and Michael Holding, to name a few, listed among his teammates. Recently, the team has fallen far from that type of dominance.
For some, the quality comparison between the talent that was available then regionally, and the current crop, is an open and shut case with overwhelming favourability for the former. For Richards, however, it isn’t that simple.
“It’s always tough for you to make comparisons of what took place yesterday to what’s happening today because I think the game would have moved on big time as well,” Richards told the Antigua Observer.
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Jason Holder had excellent figures of 5-27 as West Indies took full control over Sri Lanka on the opening day of the first Sandals Test match on Sunday. The tall seam bowler engineered a batting collapse as the last five wickets fell for 19 runs as the visitors were bowled out for 169 on a good surface at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.
Holder registered his eighth five-wicket haul in Tests off 17.4 overs and in the process reached 200 first-class wickets. He was supported by Kemar Roach who took 3-47, to move to 33 wickets at this venue in his sixth match.
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Cricket West Indies (CWI) is undertaking a thorough regional bid process for Caribbean countries wanting to host the ICC Under-19 Men’s Cricket World Cup, which will be held in the West Indies at the start of next year as the countdown to the event begins.
The tournament will feature 16 teams competing over a one-month period starting in early 2022. This is the first time the West Indies will host the event and it is likely to be staged across three host countries and will include the game’s future stars competing in 64 matches in the 50-over format.
The teams will battle for one of the eight spots in the Super League stage before having the chance to win the ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup Trophy. The remaining eight teams will fight for the ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup Plate. West Indies have won the tournament once before, in February 2016 when they beat India in the final in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
