Part 2 of Michelle McDonald's interview with Sunil Ambris
Sunil Ambris will lead the Windwards Volcanoes in their next match against the Barbados Pride, to be played in his home ground of Arnos Vale in St Vincent & the Grenadines from February 21, 2019. No doubt, the life lessons he learnt from his father, will serve him well in that role and throughout life.
As Ambris tells it, he had no choice but to play cricket. In part 2 of the audio interview, the right handed batsman shares more about his relationship with his father, who passed away in 2018, as well as his list of bests and favourites.
It's unthinkable really, a World Cup without the West Indies. It's never happened before, of course. But if last year's qualifying competition in Zimbabwe had had the Decision Review System in place, as it should have, Jason Holder's men would have probably been knocked out at the semi-final stage at the hands of Scotland. That would have meant no West Indies in England this summer and no World Cup campaign for the team to prepare for. It could so easily have been the case.
Playing for a place in the final of the qualifying tournament, and thus a place at the World Cup proper, Scotland were just behind the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern par score as rain clouds loomed in Harare. It was then that Richie Berrington was given out LBW to a ball which was clearly going to miss leg-stump. With no DRS available because of cost considerations, the decision stood, raising the DLS par score and meaning that Scotland fell, agonisingly, five runs short of victory. West Indies, who lost the final to Afghanistan, progressed to the World Cup as a result.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the ICC's decision to run a ten-team World Cup - and there are so many wrongs about it - West Indies can count themselves fortunate to be there, not just for the manner of their victory over Scotland, but also because their recent form in 50-over cricket has been dire. They have clearly not been amongst the best ten ODI teams of the past two years.
LONDON, England (CMC) — West Indies Captain Stafanie Taylor, along with the new-ball pair of Shakera Selman and Shamilia Connell, have made important strides in the latest ICC women's one-day rankings released yesterday.
Taylor has risen two places in the batting rankings to eighth, following her 158 runs at an average of 52, in the Windies' just concluded three-match series against Pakistan in Dubai.
The 27-year-old has been joined in the top 20 by all-rounder Deandra Dottin, who jumped one spot to 20th, after scoring 129 runs in the Pakistan series with a top score of 96 in the first one-dayer.
St John's, Antigua and Barbuda (AFP) — Veteran West Indies batsman Chris Gayle announced yesterday that he will retire from One-Day International cricket after this year's World Cup in England and Wales.
The big-hitting 39-year-old opener, who has scored 9,727 runs in 284 ODIs, is set to play his first international since last July against England tomorrow.
The self-styled “Universe Boss” appears confident that he can bow out in style after a 20-year career built on brutal hitting at the top of the order.
“You're looking at a great man,” he told espncricinfo.com. “I'm the greatest player in the world.
“Of course, I'm still the 'Universe Boss'. That will never change. I'll take that to the grave.”
Gayle needs 677 more runs to surpass the great Brian Lara as the West Indies' all-time record ODI run scorer, a feat he will be hoping to achieve at his fifth World Cup, which starts on May 30.
At a little over three years old, Shannon Gabriel was one of only three members of the current West Indies squad to be alive when Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Jeffrey Dujon and Malcolm Marshall retired, marking the end of the golden era of the team. The youngest member of the current side, Alzarri Joseph, was only ten when Brian Lara retired, arguably the last symbol of the mythical past. It is either extremely lazy, or a testament to the enduring mythology of those old teams, that three decades later, any achievement or failure by West Indies leads to people dredging up the past.
It is not that other narratives about the team haven't existed, but they have often been ignored. For about a decade West Indies have been at the very outer limits of the game's most cutting-edge format. As documented in several places, they have created a singularly unique and dominant type of T20 side.
They have also created not one but two remarkably similar, barely believable bodies of work - the captaincies of Darren Sammy and Jason Holder. Their stories are not easy to discern looking at the numbers alone, but rather require the context of their appointments and the subtext to their performances. Because in all the discussion of the lamentable decline of West Indies cricket, it is almost always the players who are blamed first, and the chaotic administration seems to have been taken for granted as a constant. It's almost if we want to believe that greatness can go on forever without institutional support. And so,to look at Sammy's and Holder's captaincy numbers is to not understand their remarkable careers.
