Some 7,000 persons have signed onto a petition on-line calling for the dissolution of the current West Indies Cricket Board and demanding the implementation of the Caricom Cricket Review Panel recommendations. The petition started by Facebook user Amilcar Sanatan on change.org hours after WI captain Darren Sammy’s remarks at the post-match interview of the World T20 final gained steam rapidly and has amassed 6,500 signatories in the four days since the team’s successful title-claiming victory over England on Sunday. The petition entitled “ Dissolve Current WICB and Implement Recommendations of the Caricom Cricket Review Panel” stated that on Sunday the “Caribbean people at home and abroad were again inspired with fire in their hearts by the success of the West Indies Women’s and Men’s cricket team in the ICC World Twenty 20. Again, we are in the history books, in this new format of the game as the only team to have registered wins in the U-19, Women and Men Tournaments.”
ICC Press Release: The International Cricket Council (ICC) today confirmed that following remedial work and retest, the bowling action of the West Indies’ Sunil Narine has been found to be legal, and the off-spinner can now resume bowling in both international cricket and domestic cricket events worldwide.
At the retest, it was revealed that the amount of elbow extensions in Narine’s bowling action for all his deliveries that were tested was within the 15-degree level of tolerance permitted under the ICC regulations for the review of bowlers reported with suspected illegal bowling actions.
The umpires are free to report Narine in the future if they believe he uses a suspect action.
The retest was performed at the Sri Ramachandra University in Chennai on 28 March.
Narine was reported during the third One Day International against Sri Lanka on 7 November 2015 in Pallekele and subsequently banned.
At the World Twenty20, England, India, Australia and New Zealand played by the rules entering the tournament, but teams mixing Test men and T20 experts all fell short of a West Indian collective with only two modestly performing Test players and a majority long finished with the game, if they ever made it there in the first place. A turning tide had been evident for nearly six months.
On December 12 in Hobart, West Indies lost to Australia in three days. An underprepared team shivered through the Tasmanian winds and took only four Australian wickets before lasting less than 107 overs across two woebegone innings. The next two weeks before Boxing Day were duly filled with tale upon tale of Caribbean ineptitude and struggle, with plenty of brickbats directed at Marlon Samuels in particular.
It was in these gloomy days that a jerky dance number first emerged, launched not in Shane Warne's Club 23 at Crown Casino nor any other swanky Southbank locale, but instead at a near deserted Docklands Stadium, as ground staff mowed the pitch in the background. Dwayne Bravo's "Champion" was unveiled with the help of some Bollywood dancers and the Melbourne Renegades PR team.
Late on Tuesday, the Jamaican members of the triumphant West Indies men’s team returned to the island to a hero’s welcome.
And yesterday it was the turn of Stafanie Taylor, the women’s captain, who was greeted like a queen as she arrived at the Norman Manley International Airport.
The 24-year-old all-rounder, the lone Jamaican in the West Indies squad, was hosted by team sponsor Digicel inside the Pineapple Lounge.
The West Indies Women’s team beat favourites Australia by eight wickets with three balls to spare in the World Twenty20 (T20) final in Kolkata, India, on Sunday.
“People are not focusing on cricket per se and that is what the focus needs to be. They have to find a way to work together now in good faith,” said Arthur, while hailing Sunday’s World T20 cricket victory by both the Windies men’s and women’s teams as a “wonderful achievement” and a positive indication that “West Indies cricket is not dead”.
However, he said “like all Caribbean people, I was soaring on the realms of pride, [before] the moment was sullied when both the team leadership and the West Indies Cricket Board foisted upon the international community’s attention and imagination the extent of the conflicts among themselves, and I think that was tarnished a bit by that conflict”.
