Official West Indies Thread

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Jason Mohammad? That's a blast from years gone by. He must be too old to consider for national duties surely?

Yeah he’s about 37, to his credit he does just keep churning out domestic runs, that’s his 13th first class hundred which is probably more I would guess than any active player outside of Brathwaite and Bravo, albeit it’s only this current innings of 189 that would have taken his average over 30 from 90-odd matches.

Brathwaite also finished with 189 overnight, Jangoo turned his century into a double which is rare in the Caribbean comp.

Some interesting additions to the 5 day one centurions were Tevin Imlach who came to Australia as a spare batsman/back up to Josh Da Silva. He made what I think is his third first class century for Guyana in their match against Jamaica, his second century in a row. Da Silva himself made 80(?) or so for T&T against Colleges and Campuses.

The other additional centurion on day two was, sigh. Roston Chase.
He came in on the back of the huge start given to Barbados, who like T and T finished with 500+, by Brathwaite and Zackarie McKaskie, and whacked 127 off 87 balls.

Maybe that’s what he needed to do all along to not turn into the piece of red ball human batting wreckage we know today AS Roston Chase; just go out and smash it.
 
Some interesting and ongoing positives into the final round of the first class championship:

Mikyle Louis hit his third century of the season this morning for Leewards against Windwards, to go with four half centuries. He’s sitting on 649 runs for the season with an innings to play, averaging 50. I think Chanderpaul’s spot as Brathwaite’s opening partner is in some danger. Leewards were all out for 300, fwiw.

Another eye catching score was a third half century for Jewel Andrew.
Andrew was a standout for WI at the under 19 World Cup. He’s a keeper batsman and comes from the Nicholas Pooran/Chris Gayle/Shimron Hetmeyer mould of seemingly not giving a lot of f**ks for convention when it comes to defending, at least based on his strike rate at the World Cup. He’s done ok so far in the first class comp, he hit his third half century this morning for Leewards.

Josh Da Silva made a timely century for T n T this morning against Jamaica, his form has been pretty up and down this series.
 

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Narine in cracking IPL form, but not making himself available for the World Cup.

“I hope this message finds you all well and in good health. I’m truly flattered and humbled that my performances recently have moved many people to publicly express their wish for me to come out of retirement and play in the upcoming T20 World Cup.
I have made peace with that decision and whilst I never wish to disappoint, that door is now closed and I will be supporting the guys who take the field in June for West Indies. Guys who have worked hard for the past few months and deserve to show our wonderful fans that they are capable of winning another title - I wish you all the best”
 
Good. Of all the ‘mercanaries’ and yes each of them have had their moments where they have picked and chosen when and what the maroon means to them, and each them equally have had reason to feel at times undervalued by the people managing the game in the West Indies, he is the one I’ve felt perhaps least inclined to actually WANT to contribute whether it’s on his terms or the team’s.

Even down to the idea of worrying that his action will be cited at international level and cause him problems getting franchise contracts.

In this particular instance it’s been so long between drinks I don’t begrudge him anyway, but his attitude has almost always been him-first.
 
First test gets underway at the QPO tonight against SA.
Not to write off the games vs England but this was the series I was probably most interested in in the wash up to the Australian tour. I was hoping we could ambush England in one match but realistically not expecting to. Against the flaky SA side in a home series on pitches that I would think will negate their strengths to a fair degree i think it gives us a reasonable chance, especially with so much of their own batting under a question mark.

Roach comes back in, Alzarri has been given a rest for the series, so has Shemar for this game - Windies have gone with two spinners in Motie and Warrican as well, with Seales and Holder the other pacemen.

Interesting that SA have only picked four ‘specialist’ bowlers; Rabada, Ngidi, Maharaj and Wiaan Mulder who has an ok record but in all the times I’ve watched him has been dogshit as far as a potential frontline bowler goes. His 3/1 best bowling figures are propping up that record at the moment.

No Kirk McKenzie - Keacy Carty gets his first test cap. Has a poor record but had a decent first class season.

Daniel Bedingham who I think everyone loves the look of comes in off the back of five centuries in county cricket including four in successive innings.

It looks a bit like he, Markram or bust to some degree.
 
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Wicket to Holder with his first ball, knocks Markram’s off stump out of the ground. 1-43 at drinks.
Perfect way to start: top of off stump.

Nothing in the pitch at all. De Zorzi for a bloke that looked utterly hopeless in NZ has looked ok, played motie well so far.

Holder has always fascinated me with where and when he thrives and even that first wicket highlighted it. He’s tall and has excellent control, can stand the seam up and swing it a bit but you put him in England or in what should be perfect conditions for him and he doesn’t seem particularly threatening yet he seems to bowl beautifully at home on these featherbed pitches and has won his team a test in the UAE as well, and not ever really through his extraordinary height
 
Google ‘worst talked-into review ever’ and you will see a picture of the conversation between Kyle Verreyne and Temba Bavuma from this innings.

Seales hits Bavuma with a shin high full toss, on the back leg in front of middle and off, swinging AWAY, no less, the umpire rightly raises his finger before Seales can even turn around to give his appeal, Bavuma is just as quick to begin walking off but makes the mistake of a wistful glance at his partner 😂
I think Verreyne made a mistake of his own via the old adage ‘might have gone down leg.’
It wasn’t going down leg.
 
Cause there’s no other thread to ask this, why are RSA playing 4 wicketkeepers?

Probably the same reason they’re perpetually playing a bunch of all-rounders. They seem to be the best batsmen they’ve got. Imagine if Klaasen was still there as well.

Decent effort from the Windies bowlers. It’s a flat deck, never let SA get away, though SA is an inexperienced batting line up so they’ll be happy enough themselves.
 

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If you’re SA and you’re playing on a spinning pitch and you’ve picked 1.5, 2 spinners, and you’ve picked Mulder as you’re ‘third’ paceman I can forgive that.

But you haven’t done that here, you’ve just picked Maharaj. I haven’t looked deep into the circumstances of who is where, and why. But you are South Africa. Mulder? Your third paceman? What a disgrace.
 
If you’re SA and you’re playing on a spinning pitch and you’ve picked 1.5, 2 spinners, and you’ve picked Mulder as you’re ‘third’ paceman I can forgive that.

But you haven’t done that here, you’ve just picked Maharaj. I haven’t looked deep into the circumstances of who is where, and why. But you are South Africa. Mulder? Your third paceman? What a disgrace.
Can’t say I’ve been keeping a close eye on their squad, but surely after the last summer Jansen, Nortje, Coetzee and Burger would all be ahead of him
 
I see Braithwaite was run out which is pretty random for a guy who made 35 off 131...what happened there if anyone saw it?

Fell asleep just before it happened but based on commentary the run was on if he went straight but he veered to avoid the ball and his bat ended up right on the line so that’s basically what cost him his wicket
 
Can’t say I’ve been keeping a close eye on their squad, but surely after the last summer Jansen, Nortje, Coetzee and Burger would all be ahead of him

Coetzee and Burger are both in the touring squad so not sure if it’s quota related or pitch related etc or even perhaps to do with Mulder’s batting; much as I personally think he’s garbage from what I’ve seen, he apparently had a huge domestic season last summer so that’s a factor maybe given the inexperience in their top order
 
Fell asleep just before it happened but based on commentary the run was on if he went straight but he veered to avoid the ball and his bat ended up right on the line so that’s basically what cost him his wicket
Jeez that's ordinary from someone of his experience at this level. It's one of those little things that irrationally irks me when batsman do this.
 
Shamar rips out Markram and Bavuma in three balls. That one that got Bavuma was clocked at 147 and looked it too; the speed gun looks dodgy today, some that look quite rapid are showing up sluggish. Big opportunity here. Pitch is doing a bit and he and Seales look in good nick
 
Piedt and Rabada putting on 63 for the final wicket will bite the Windies in the ass big time.

*burger.

I fell asleep a few times with us well on top and then woke up to see firstly that, and then the inexplicably 6-60, then just in time to see the on-paper not significant dismissal of Motie but it actually could prove very important.

The tail and Holder have a big job to do.

That was as disciplined as bowling effort as I can remember from a Windies pace trio for most of the innings at least. Basically no freebies
 
PS. Big thank you to Plugger35

Since the instant you said Holder should be batting below da Silva he’s gone

37
51
12
36
31*
33*

200 runs at 50. No big scores yet but he’s batted very well.

And two of those dismissals he basically had to throw it away while pursuing boundaries batting with a #10.

Thanks buddy. We’ve got our all-rounder’s batting form back to some sort of Test standard. We owe you one
 

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