Nagraj Gollaupadi, in ESPNcricinfo, 12 July 2020, where the title reads “Jermaine Blackwood writes history in his own way”
Dom Bess mocked him in the first innings. Jermaine Blackwood had charged England’s offspinner on Friday to hit hard into the hands of James Anderson at mid-off. Bess imitated swinging a golf club, as if out of a bunker in the golf course adjacent to Ageas Bowl. Blackwood’s audacity was not to the Englishman’s liking.
Mark Wood floors himself as Jermaine Blackwood’s lofted drive beats mid-offONE: Tony Cozier in 2015: “Ninety years of Everton Weekes,” 26 Feb 2015
Of all the numbers stacked against the name Everton de Courcy Weekes in scorebooks the world over, 90 carries an unfortunate significance.
It was his score in West Indies’ first innings of the fourth Testagainst India in Chepauk, Madras, now Chennai, in January 1949. Ten more runs would have extended his overall record of five successive Test hundreds that has never been surpassed; he was cut short by a run-out decision by the square-leg umpire that Weekes now euphemistically describes as “rather doubtful”.
Nagraj Gollapudi in ESPNcricinfo, 3 June 2020 … with this title “Why West Indies trio pulled out of England tour”
Concerns about their families are understood to be the primary reason behind Darren Bravo, Shimron Hetmyer and Keemo Paul declining to be part of the West Indies Test squad for the England tour. Both the prospect of leaving their families for seven weeks and concerns about how quickly they would be able to see them on their return to the Caribbean at the end of July are understood to be key factors in the players’ decisions, with uncertainty around the quarantine requirements that may be imposed by their respective governments.
Hetmyer and Darren Bravo in the middle
Andrew Fidel Fernando talks to Mickey Arthur, ESPNcricinfo, 21 February 2020 – where the title is “
On Wednesday, ahead of his first ODI series as Sri Lanka coach Mickey Arthur spoke about players being handed down well-defined roles within the team. On Friday, on the eve of the first one-dayer against West Indies, he went into a little more detail about what those roles were.
At the tender age of nine or so, one Christopher John Van Twest – “CJ” in family circles – was a budding young cricketer who attended Royal College in Colombo. His talents were admired THEN by his peers (for e.g. Eardley Lieversz who went on to captain Royal). CJ was also cricket mad. One dimension of this madness was the assiduous collection of newspaper items on cricket as reported in the Ceylon newspapers of the year 1957 in a SCRAPBOOK. This collection remained in his treasured archive and moved with him when his divourced mother decided to migrate in July 1958 with baggage and two children to Canada.
Joe Hoad passed way a year or so back due to a medical mishap. My appreciation of the man and his contribution to Sri Lankan cricket was recorded earlier in Cricketique via a ditty of my own in what may pass for “islander strain:”
Joe’s no Imran Khan,
He’s just a plain Bajan man, man.
You see Joe,
Da man could talk
Boy, how he could talk
That man know how to walk the talk, and even how to talk the walk
Michael Roberts
Amidst a few cricketing highlights this ODI encounter was marked by its plethora of bumbling horrors of considerable magnitude.
One … Kusal Perera’s brain fade which left him stranded and run-out — that when he was batting well …. 18.1 a wicket thrown away! Back of a length on leg, and tapped to midwicket. Perera wants the double, but his partner hasn’t responded, and the throw from deep mid-wicket is well aimed at the bowler’s end. To be fair to Fernando, there was no two there 104/2
Filed under memorable moments, Sri Lanka Cricket, West Indian Cricket
Nagraj Gollapudi, in The Cricket Monthly, where the title runs thus “Pipe Man, Lord’s will feel empty without you”
June 24: Lord’s felt empty last weekend. Because Keith van Anderson had left the ground to talk cricket with the Lord. Keith van Anderson, you were baffling. When I heard about your death last month, on Twitter, I felt a dryness in my mouth, followed by the kind of emptiness that engulfs one on losing someone close. You and I were not related in any way – blood, friendship, profession – but we knew each other through cricket, over many meetings at Lord’s.
Lord’s regular the Pipe Man, in his MCC hat © Clayton Murzello
Filed under cricketing icons, unusual people, West Indian Cricket, World Cup 2019
Melinda Farrell in ESPNcricinfo, 6 June 2019, where the title is “West Indies’ fury at ‘dodgy’ decisions as Australia get rub of the green”
Michael Holding has slammed the umpiring during West Indies’ loss to Australia as “atrocious”, while Carlos Brathwaite described some decisions as “frustrating” and “dodgy” and suggested that West Indies players are on the wrong end of decisions more often than their opponents. He denied, however, that the decisions had cost them the match in a hard-fought 15-run defeat to Australia at Trent Bridge.
The umpires, Chris Gaffaney and Ruchira Palliyaguruge, had four decisions overturned between them and Gaffaney also missed a blatant front foot no-ball from Mitchell Starc that preceded the delivery that claimed the wicket of Chris Gayle. If the no-ball had been called, Gayle would have had a free hit on what was ultimately the wicket-ball.
