West Indies captain, Kraigg Brathwaite, batted through the day for an invaluable 99 not out as the team reached 287-7 at the close of play, on the opening day of the second and final Sandals Test against Sri Lanka, at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, in Antigua on Monday.
Brathwaite demonstrated patience and tenacity on a pitch which offered some assistance to the seam bowlers in the first session. Brathwaite’s innings has spanned six-and-a-half hours in which he faced 239 balls and struck 11 fours. He is on the verge of a ninth Test century, which would also be his second at the venue, the other was 121 against Bangladesh in 2018.
When he reached 98, Brathwaite also became the 16th West Indian batsman to surpass 4,000 Test runs – to join an elite list. The others are Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Viv Richards, Brian Lara, Sir Garry Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Sir Gordon Greenidge, Alvin Kallicharan, Sir Richie Richardson, Sir Clive Lloyd, Roy Fredericks, Chris Gayle, Shiv Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Desmond Haynes and Carl Hooper.
He held the innings together and shared the day’s honours with Saranga Lakmal who had claimed two early wickets – John Campbell and Nkrumah Bonner and added Jermaine Blackwood to end the day with 3-71.
Brathwaite and Kyle Mayers had a third-wicket partnership of 71 as the left-handed made 49. West Indies slipped to 222-7 in the final session of the day, but Brathwaite found another resolute partner in Rahkeem Cornwall, who closed unbeaten on 43, in a partnership that has been worth 65 runs so far for the eighth wicket.
English Championship strugglers Sheffield Wednesday have decided against signing Jamaica international Ravel Morrison after a brief trial period at the club.
The former Manchester United youth standout was invited to train with the club earlier this month after leaving Eredivisie minnows ADO Den Haag in January. The Owls were weighing up the decision to give the midfielder a contract until the end of the season but decided against doing so.
The club would have needed to register the 28-year-old last week, in order to add him to the first-team squad for the rest of the season. The team currently finds itself mired in the relegation zone, in 23rd position, with only a handful of games to save themselves.
For his part, Morrison will be looking for his 12th club in what has been a nomadic career to date. Some of the player’s former clubs have included West Ham United, Lazio, Queens Park Rangers, and Middlesbrough.
Interestingly Wednesday is coached by another Jamaica international Darren Moore. Moore's men entered the international break in good heart following a positive win over Barnsley.
Wednesday return to action on Friday when they travel to automatic promotion contenders Watford.
Discarded West Indies players Shai Hope and Roston Chase will have to fight their way back into the Test team, after not being selected for the matches against Sri Lanka.
Hope, widely agreed to be one of the region’s most talented batsmen, was dropped from the team after a poor run of form in November of last year. Chase, the consistent all-rounder, at the same time replaced Kraigg Brathwaite as vice-captain ahead of the New Zealand series.
Both players were called to the team ahead of the Bangladesh series but were among 12 players to decline due to health and safety concerns.
Hope has since returned to the ODI squad, where he looked to be in strong form. Chase, who initially missed out on the minimum fitness requirement ahead of the series, put on a strong display in the warm-up tour matches. Both players remain on the sideline, so far. For now, according to Simmons, however, the current players are doing well enough to keep their places.
“The guys who played in the Test matches have done well, so we need to continue to back the guys who have done well in the last three Test matches,” Simmons told members of the media via a Zoom press conference.
“The way I look at it is the guys did well. The guys went to Bangladesh, each one of the batsmen did well. They earned their places. So, it is a case where they continue to play and play well,” he added.
“Roston, Shai, those other players will have to fight their way back in, and that just how cricket goes.”
Guyanese businessman, Bissoondyal Singh, has been elected as president of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB), following an election in Georgetown on Monday.
After being postponed last month, due to a number of contentious issues raised by the Essequibo Cricket Board (ECB), the process, conducted by recently appointed cricket ombudsman Kamal Ramkarran, reportedly went off without a hitch.
Other appointments will see Rabindranauth Saywack and Hilbert Foster serve as vice-presidents with Ronald Williams named secretary. Former West Indies batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan has been named as the Chairman of the Senior Selectors, with current Cricket West Indies chief of selectors Roger Harper, also offered a position as a technocrat member with voting rights at executive meetings.
On Sunday, the CWI elections, which were slated to have Guyana’s Anand Sanasie and Barbados’ Calvin Hope challenge the incumbents Ricky Skerrit and Kishore Shallow, was postponed after a quorum could not be reached due to the absence of representatives from the Guyana and Barbados.
The elections have been re-set for April 11 but could now take on an entirely context following the GCB elections. Sanasie previously held the post of general secretary but has through his attorney’s questioned both the legality of appointing the Ombudsman and elections themselves.
GCB full slate
President– Bissoondyal Singh
Vice-President– Hilbert Foster
Vice-President– Rabindranauth Saywack
Secretary– Ronald Williams
Assistant Secretary– Davteerth Anandjit
Treasurer– Pretipaul Jaigobin
Assistant Treasurer– Dr. Cecil Beharry
Public Relations Officer– Claude Raphael
Marketing Manager– Mohamed Baksh
Chairman of Competitions Committee– Shaun Massiah
Chairman of Senior Selectors– Ramnaresh Sarwan
Chairman of Junior Selectors– Andre Percival
Technocrat members with voting rights at executive meetings– Roger Harper and Anil Beharry.
Newly promoted West Indies skipper, Kraigg Brathwaite, insists there is no worry about the added responsibility of captaincy affecting his batting form after somewhat of a slow start to officially taking the reins.
Brathwaite, who officially took over from Jason Holder at the start of the Sri Lanka series, made a total of 26 at the top of the order for the first Test, for an average of just 13. The batsman did, however, manage to occupy the crease, his score of 23 in the second innings coming from 124 balls. While not showing up on the scoreboard, the player believes it was a vital contribution.
“I’m not concerned. In the second innings I managed to spend over two hours at the crease, which was important for us as a batting unit,” Brathwaite told members of the media via a Zoom press conference.
“As I said before, I always enjoy leading and I know what I have to do, I know my role as a batsman and also as the captain. So, I’m not concerned.”
In the previous series against Bangladesh, as the stand-in captain for Holder, Brathwaite scored 149 runs over the two matches, for an average of 37.25. The West Indies unexpectedly won the series 2-0, which played a crucial role in Brathwaite securing the leadership post.
West Indies head coach, Phil Simmons, has backed the team's strike bowler Shannon Gabriel to bounce back following a poor showing against Sri Lanka in the first Test.
The 32-year-old pace bowler had a first Test to forget, failing to claim a wicket for the entire match. Overall, he ended with figures of 0 for 89 in 27 overs. The bowler last went wicketless in a match last year, in the second Test against England where he ended 0 for 122.
In assessing the player’s most recent performances, however, Simmons dismissed Gabriel’s first-match struggles as just a blip and looked forward to a much better showing in the second Test.
“I thought in Bangladesh, he bowled exceptionally well in both Test matches and he was the main one, on the occasion in the first Test, who turned things around with his spell in the evening,” Simmons said in an assessment of the player’s recent form.
“He had a bad game and bowlers have that. Two of the main bowlers did not have a good game but that’s one game,” he added.
“I think he has been unsung, in New Zealand he was unsung, in Bangladesh he was unsung, so, one bad game does not change him being the strike bowler.”
In New Zealand, despite a tough series for the regional team, Gabriel, who was the pick of the bowlers, extracted plenty of pace and bounce from the surface to claim six wickets in two matches, where New Zealand only batted once.
Oregon’s Kemba Nelson continued to demonstrate how rapid progress at Oregon on Saturday when she ran a windy 22.79 over 200m to win at the 42nd Annual Aztec Invitational in San Diego, California.
The Annual General Meeting of Cricket West Indies that was scheduled to be held today has been rescheduled for Sunday, April 11, 2021, after the representatives from Barbados and Guyana failed to show this morning.
The meeting therefore could not proceed to business as the CWI Articles of Association stipulate that nine representatives of the Full Members need to be present in-person to constitute a quorum.
All eight (8) representatives duly authorized to represent the Jamaica Cricket Association, Leeward Islands Cricket Board (LICB), Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board (TTCB) and the Windward Islands Cricket Board were present.
Despite having previously authorized their representatives to attend, when the roll was called there were no representatives present from the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) nor the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA).
The Articles of Association provide that if there is no quorum within thirty minutes from the time appointed for the meeting, it shall stand adjourned to the next business day or to such other time and place as the Board of Directors may determine, and at the adjourned meeting no other business may be transacted.
Attempts to reach the representatives from the BCA and GCB were unsuccessful. The meeting was eventually adjourned at 10:50 a.m.
The CWI Board of Directors subsequently held an Emergency Board Meeting at midday today, Sunday 28th March 2021, and decided that the AGM will resume on Sunday 11th April 2021 at 10:00 am ECT/09:00am Jamaica Time.
Damion Thomas and Sparkle McKnight were winners on Saturday’s final day of the 93rd Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays held at the Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas.
Jamaica Reggae Girl Dominique Bond-Flasza has inked a deal with Icelandic women’s top division club Tindastóli.
The 24-year-old right-back who last played in Poland is expected to join up with her new team this summer. Tindastóll won the Lengjudeild, which is the country’s second division, last summer and will play in the top division for the first time. As such the Jamaican has been brought in as part of reinforcements. The Reggae Girl, who has a Polish father and Jamaican mother, will bring plenty of experience to the position.
Bond-Flasza played with PSV Eindhoven from 2018 to 2020 and also has 17 caps for her national team Jamaica. It was Bond-Flasza scoring from the penalty spot that secured the national team a place at the 2019 World Cup. She then played one of the team's three World Cup games in France.
West Indies coach, Phil Simmons, insists the team will need to brush up on its bowling and work in the field ahead of the second and final Test against Sri Lanka, which gets underway on Monday.
The West Indies successfully negotiated the fifth and final day on the back of a patient 113 undefeated from the bat of Nkrumah Bonner. After being dismissed for 169 in the first innings a massive 476 piled up in the second innings would have been a massive concern. The Sri Lankans were led by 103 from Pathum Nissanka and 96 from Niroshan Dickwella. The pair frustrating and blunting the Windies bowling attack.
For large periods of the second innings, it seemed the hosts had lost their way, with a series of poor displays in the field and poor choices to review. Simmons believes if the team is to win a second straight Test series, the errors must be cleaned up.
“I think our discipline when we are bowling has to improve,” Simmons told Windiescricket.
“The few hours in the field that we allow runs to just slip by us, because of the discipline, that definitely has to tighten up, and then we just have to bat in the second innings like we batted in the first innings,” he added.
Tennessee freshman Rasheeme Griffith ran a personal best time to win the 400m hurdles at the FSU Relays on Friday.
Joshua Perez bagged a brace to lead El Salvador to a 2-1 win over Haiti in their Group B finale of the 2020 Concacaf Men’s Olympic Qualifying Championship on Thursday at the Estadio Jalisco in Guadalajara, Mexico.
With the victory, El Salvador’s hopes of reaching the knockout round are still alive, pending the result of the Canada-Honduras match.
El Salvador started off by poking and prodding the Haitian defence before breaking through in the 19’ with a superb strike from Joshua Perez, who received a pass in between a pair of defenders and fired in a left-footed shot to make it a 1-0 El Salvador lead.
The joy was short-lived though, as less than two minutes later Haiti pulled back level 1-1 when an El Salvador giveaway in their own half led to a quick break, with Roberto Louima fighting off a trio of defenders and beating El Salvador GK Tomas Romero for the equalizer.
El Salvador would then regain the lead right before halftime, with Perez following up his header that deflected off the post and finishing with his left foot to make it 2-1 to El Salvador.
El Salvador was keen to add to their lead to start the second half and had several looks at goal, but was unable to find a way past Haiti GK Alan Jerome.
The reprieve sparked Haiti to life in attack and Louima, along with Peterson Joseph, suddenly had the Salvadoran defence and Romero on their heels.
Danley Jean had one final look at goal for Haiti, but was unable to convert, allowing El Salvador to see things out to claim the win.
Meanwhile, Honduras claimed the top spot in Group B of the 2020 Concacaf Men’s Olympic Qualifying championship by virtue of a 1-1 draw with Canada in their group stage finale on Thursday night at the Estadio Jalisco in Guadalajara, Mexico.
The Catrachos completed the group stage with five points and a first-place finish and will now face the United States in Sunday’s semifinals in which the winner will advance to the 2020 Olympics In Tokyo.
Canada wrapped up their Group B campaign with five points as well, finishing second on goal difference and will now take on host nation Mexico in hopes of a first Olympic berth since 1984.
Honduras had a bright start and Kervin Arriaga came within a whisker of the opening goal in the 9’ with a right-footed shot that slammed onto the post and out.
Canada reacted well and after missing on an earlier header, Derek Cornelius found the target in the 28’ on his second attempt to give Canada a 1-0 lead by connecting on a cross from Patrick Metcalfe.
Honduras’ response was immediate and two minutes later in the 30’ Denil Maldonado was first to reach Edwin Rodriguez’s free-kick and headed in past Canada GK James Pantemis to draw the Catrachos level 1-1.
The second half started off with a good tempo and Juan Carlos Obregon was set to give the Hondurans their first lead of the night in the 54’, but was unable to head into the net from just a few yards out.
In the 73’ it was Luis Palma almost converting on a loose ball in the area but the Honduran attacker saw his shot blocked by Pantemis.
In the end, Honduras were never able to find a second goal, but the result was enough to seal a first-place finish.
This Sunday, March 28 is set for Cricket West Indies (CWI) to hold its 22nd Annual General Meeting in respect of the financial year ended September 30, 2020.
Due to the continuing travel-related effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting will again take place virtually via video conference, as was done in a COVID-19 delayed meeting last year.
It is also the day when incumbent CWI President Ricky Skerritt and Vice President Dr. Kishore Shallow, will face challenges from Anand Sanasie of the Guyana Cricket Board and Calvin Hope of the Barbados Cricket Association, respectively, for the leadership of the organization over the next two-year term.
“All arrangements are in place for a productive Annual General Meeting,” President Skerritt said.
“This is not the first time that CWI is hosting a virtual AGM but it will be the first time that our leadership elections will take place virtually. We have everything in place to ensure a constructive and proper meeting.”
Shareholder members are slated to receive reports from the Cricket, Commercial and Finance Committees and for the first time, audited financial statements which will be consolidated to reflect CWI’s acquisition of and interest in the Coolidge Cricket Ground.
A copy of the 2019/20 audited financial statements and the Annual Report will be made available to all stakeholders via CWI’s website - http://www.windiescricket.com – from Monday, March 29.
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