Legendary West Indies batsman, Viv Richards, has once again decried what he believes to be the role of poorly prepared playing surfaces in the underdevelopment of both the region’s batsman and bowlers.
The regional team is in the grips of a particularly bad spell, after suffering a 2-1 defeat to Ireland in the most recent One Day International series. The series was the first the Irish have won again them and sent shockwaves around the region.
“I don’t think there is enough preparation being put into wickets, and wickets play a huge part because sometimes you get some individuals who would be selected because of some good performances on some dodgy tracks,” Richards told Antigua’s Good Morning Jojo Radio program.
Former West Indies cricketer Shivnarine Chanderpaul has been appointed Jamaica Tallawahs new Head Coach.
The 47-year-old left-hander, who has played 164 Tests, 268 ODIs and 22 T20Is, scoring a total of 20,988 runs for the West Indies, will take charge of the team for the 2022 Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL).
"Shivnarine has had an illustrious playing career and is one of the greats of the game. He has served West Indies cricket with distinction, and I know that he will take the Tallawahs to new heights," said Krishna Persaud, owner of the Jamaica Tallawahs.
For his part, Chanderpaul is excited to join the unit and hopes to lead the team back to winning ways.
Seven days after their 2-1 One-Day International (ODI) series defeat to Ireland, the West Indies return to action for a five-match T20I series against the visiting English. The series, which is set to be contested at the Kensington Oval in Barbados, will bowl off West Indies’ preparations for the eighth edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, to be hosted in Australia later this year.
The contest will feature the return of Kieron Pollard to the T20I squad, as the skipper missed out on WINDIES’ three-nil series defeat to Pakistan due to injury. Meanwhile, the Caribbean side will also welcome the return of several other players; including the likes of Fabian Allen—from injury—and Hayden Walsh Jr., to stand in the spin department. A department which should be led by Akeal Hosein, who comes into this contest with figures of 1/19 & 1/16 from his last T20I series.
BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CMC) — West Indies Under-19 Head Coach Floyd Reifer has praised the teenage squad for the character they displayed in their second match of the ICC Under-19 World Cup, following an opening defeat, and said he wanted to see them improve even more when they face Sri Lanka on Friday.
He said the team played a good day of cricket here on Monday, beating Scotland by seven wickets in their second game of the tournament at Warner Park.
West Indies lost their opening match to Australia in Guyana last Friday, and the hosts hit back strongly, bundling out the Scots for a mere 95 in the 36th over.
“I think coming out of the first game's defeat, the young lads showed a lot of character in bouncing back from that first defeat against Australia. Obviously, there would have been a lot of nerves going into that game; only if we had batted a bit better in that game we could have won that game also. Coming into the second game, we showed some good character…we played a good game of cricket,” Reifer said.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — The West Indies Twenty20 International (T20I) squad that will face England in the first Betway Series starting this weekend is expected to perform more creditably than the T20 World Cup team once players execute according to the game plan.
Speaking on Tuesday at the first press conference ahead of the five-match series at Kensington Oval, Head Coach Phil Simmons said it may not be as difficult to overcome England as some may think.
Cricket West Indies (CWI) selectors made changes to the T20 squad, including some uncapped players in the team, following the poor performance at the ICC T20 World Cup late last year.
“In Pakistan, yes we lost the three games but there was a lot more energy, a lot more enthusiasm and that's the group that's coming into this series here against England,” he told journalists.
