Former West Indies batsman Guyanese Ramnaresh gave new CWI President Ricky Skerritt’s Administration a passing grade and would like to see better facilities in the Caribbean to produce more players who can produce at the International level.
The 39-year-old, who was born in the Essequibo Island of Wakanaam, was viewed as a young prodigy since he moved to Campbellville in Georgetown as a toddler and reeled off back-to-back centuries for his Primary School Stella Maris. He played the first of his 220 First-Class matches as a 15-year-old to become the youngest First-Class player in the West Indies before making a magnificent 84 against Pakistan in Barbados at 19, while at age 28 years, 228 days he became the youngest West Indian to reach 5000 runs when he scored a century against England in Jamaica in 2009.
The elegant Sarwan played his last Test against India in 2011 at a venue where he announced his arrival on the Test arena, his final ODI was in 2013 when West Indies opposed India and the next year he said goodbye to first-Class Cricket when Leicestershire played Worcestershire in the English County Championships.
The Hero Caribbean Premier League has worked with Trombone Productions and Sunset+Vine to create films that tell the stories of three of the most exciting Caribbean cricketers. The films focus on Oshane Thomas, Keemo Paul and Rovman Powell.
In each film, these talented young men travel back to their home towns and meet the people who helped them become the cricketers they are today. We also hear from some of the superstar cricketers who they have played with in their career, with the likes of Chris Gayle, Andre Russell and Shoaib Malik giving us their thoughts on these players.
Oshane Thomas visits the site of his brother’s murder, talks about how this impacted on his life and how he overcame this to become an international cricketer.
Veteran West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo has rated the current squad of players as better overall than past T20 World Cup-winning teams.
Under the captaincy of Darren Sammy and with the likes of Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Kieron Pollard, and Dwayne Smith the West Indies captured the world titles at the 2010 and 2016 editions. The current set-up, while having some of the same players who played in the previous edition, like Pollard and including Bravo, mostly consists of a new generation of West Indies talent.
Bravo, who was recently recalled to the team, admits that the most impressive aspect of the new guns is a deep and talented batting line-up, which interestingly is absent top T20 batsman Chris Gayle.
“In the last series in Sri Lanka, we had a team meeting, and coach Phil [Simmons] put the team down, the list, and he put it down in batting order, and he had my name down at No. 9," Bravo said in a recent interview with Espn.
"And I said to the guys, I said listen, I don't think I was ever involved in a T20 team when I am down to bat at No. 9,” he added.
The Barbados Tridents have announced the Caribbean players they will be retaining for the 2020 Hero Caribbean Premier League. International retentions and signings will be announced at a later date. This year teams can retain as many players from their 2019 squads as they wish. They could also transfer players to other teams and sign emerging players.
The Tridents have chosen to retain or sign nine Caribbean players ahead of the CPL draft including the exciting all-rounder Nyeem Young as one of their emerging players.
The Jamaica Tallawahs have wasted little time in finding a replacement for the ‘Universe Boss’ Chris Gayle, as they have snapped up the captain of the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, Carlos Brathwaite.
The Gleaner has been reliably informed that Barbadian Brathwaite is among five players that have been retained by the Tallawahs for the 2020 Caribbean Premier League (CPL) season, which is tentatively scheduled to bowl off in late August.
All-rounders Andrè Russell, Rovman Powell, wicketkeeper-batsman Chadwick Walton and fast bowler Oshane Thomas are, according to our sources, the other players retained by the two-time champions.
When The Gleaner reached out to Tallawahs CEO Jeff Miller for an opinion on the latest acquisition, he declined to comment on the report.
“I don’t have anything to say on the matter, please call the CPL and they will give you the list. At this time only they can release names,” Miller said.
