Picking an all-time best XI for the different territories that make up the West Indies and compete in the annual West Indies Championship was a six-week challenge of monumental proportions.
It took scores of hours to produce it and on occasion, you the reader had to help us out in compiling what we believe to be the six best teams ever assembled from the Caribbean.
Now there is another monumental task in front of us, you included.
While everybody has a team they would like to see win an all-time best XI West Indies Championship, could you really look at a list of the teams we have been posting for the last six weeks and objectively pick a winner?
Could a Leeward Islands team led by the great Sir Isaac Vivian Richards with bowlers like Sir Andy Roberts and Sir Curtly Ambrose, backed up by the batting of Richie Richardson lift the title?
Or would the all-round power of a Barbados team with the likes of the three Ws, and a bowling attack led by Malcolm Marshall be too much?
Maybe the Jamaicans with the powerful Chris Gayle leading from the first ball and Patrick Patterson scaring the bejesus out of batsmen could surprise everybody.
But there is also a Trinidad and Tobago team led by Brian Lara and backed up by the bowling of Ian Bishop, Sonny Ramhadin, and Tony Gray.
Of course, any team with the powerful batting that Guyana has on display cannot be written off.
The potential for how a competition like this would go are incalculable. In fact, asking around the office, I got many different answers about how a competition of this nature would pan out.
Of course, for most in the office, Barbados were hard to deny but the other positions switched around often.
Barbados, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Windward Islands
Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Leeward Islands, Jamaica, Windward Islands
Barbados, Leeward Islands, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Windward Islands
Barbados, Leeward Islands, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Windward Islands
Barbados, Leeward Islands, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Windward Islands
Now you get to vote on who would win the championship as well. You can vote by clicking here. As usual, you are invited to discuss the virtual championship and the way it has panned out on Facebook or Twitter.
The placement of the other teams will depend on how many votes they get as a team that wins. So if Barbados gets the second-most votes, then they will have finished second in the virtual competition and so on and so forth.
For the purposes of ease, here are the teams once again. You may click on any headline to learn more about the names you may not be familiar with:
Kieran Powell, Stuart Williams, Richie Richardson, Viv Richards, Keith Arthurton, Runako Morton, Ridley Jacobs, Andy Roberts, Eldine Baptiste, Kenny Benjamin, and Curtly Ambrose.
Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Garry Sobers, Frank Worrell, Conrad Hunte, Clyde Walcott, Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall, Wayne Daniel, and Sylvester Clarke.
Chris Gayle, Easton McMorris, George Headley, Lawrence Rowe, Maurice Foster, Collie Smith, Jeffrey Dujon, Michael Holding, Courtney Walsh, Patrick Patterson, and Nikita Miller.
Devon Smith, Irvine Shillingford, Lochart Sebastien, Andre Flecher, Dawnley Joseph, Darren Sammy, Junior Murray, Kenroy Peters, Shane Shillingford, Winston Davis, and Nixon McLean.
Jeffrey Stollmeyer, Joey Carew, Brian Lara, Larry Gomes, Gerry Gomez, Charlie Davis, Denesh Ramdin, Learie Constantine, Tony Gray, Sonny Ramadhin, and Ian Bishop.
Roy Fredericks, Rohan Kanhai, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Basil Butcher, Carl Hooper, Clive Lloyd, Alvin Kallicharran, Colin Croft, Roger Harper, Reon King, and Lance Gibbs.
Paul-Andre is the Managing Editor at SportsMax.tv. He comes to the role with almost 20 years of experience as journalist. That experience includes all facets of media. He began as a sports Journalist in 2001, quickly moving into radio, where he was an editor before becoming a news editor and then an entertainment editor with one of the biggest media houses in the Caribbean.
Fans unsure about keeping Marlon, panel cuts him from Ultimate XI final reckoning
There was no place for Marlon Samuels in SportsMax’s Ultimate XI T20 batsmen 3-5 after a panel of experts dumped the allrounder from a shortlist of 14 on the SportsMax Zone earlier today.
The panel consisting of David Brook, cricket commentator and reporter, Sachin Ramsuhbag, cricket commentator, and Chris Taylor, commentator and cricket umpire, felt Samuels, though a proven match winner, did not stack up with the consistency of some of the other batsmen in the list.
The panel also felt that Samuels’ strike rate (117.93) over the course of 187 games was not high enough, when compared to others in the list.
That list reads a veritable who’s who in the T20 game, with India’s Virat Kohli and Mahendra Singh Dhoni; South Africa’s Faf du Plessis, JP Duminy and AB de Villiers; West Indies’ Samuels; England’s Kevin Pietersen, Eoin Morgan, and Joe Root; Pakistan’s Babar Azam and Shoaib Malik; Australia’s Glenn Maxwell; Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara; and New Zealand’s Kane Williamson all getting the nod.
From that list, du Plessis, Samuels, Morgan, Duminy, Sangakkara, Maxwell, Williamson and Root have all been cut.
That means Kohli, Pietersen, Babar, Shoaib, de Villiers and Dhoni are the men who will vie for three places, from the number-three to the number five positions in the batting line-up when another panel of experts makes a judgement on the SportsMax Zone tomorrow.
While voting fans, Fanalysts, just pick a final XI, if they were to pick a group for a final discussion, it might look a little different from the one the panel picked.
So far, the fans have favoured Kohli, de Villiers, Dhoni, Maxwell, Pietersen, and there is a toss-up between Samuels and Sangakkara for the sixth position.
For the fans, neither Babar nor Shoaib factor in their all-time XI.
Fans, called Fanalysts have a 30% weighted vote on who makes SportsMax’s Ultimate XI T20 team, with the SportsMax Zone having another 30% of the vote. The panel of experts’ vote will count for 40% of the overall votes.
Fanlysts can vote by clicking here or going to SportsMax.tv and just clicking on the Ultimate XI tab at the top of the screen.
SportsMax.tv has also built a list of profiles where Fanalysts can go to have a look at the careers of the players who have made the SportsMax Ultimate XI shortlist just in case you want to learn a little more about them before making your choice. To take a look at those players click here.
Bravo just wants to play – Former TKR skipper happy to be led by Pollard
The injury to Dwayne Bravo that kept him out of the 2019 edition of the Hero Caribbean Premier League and saw Kieron Pollard replace him as captain of the Trinbago Knight Riders may have been fortuitous.
Pollard had big shoes to fill, as Bravo had led the TKR to back-to-back titles in 2017 and 2018.
The big West Indies captain, the most experienced T20 player in the history of the format, lost to eventual champions Barbados Tridents in the second qualifier for the competition’s final in 2019.
Still, he has retained his position as skipper in the team and has the blessing of his predecessor.
CEO of the TKR, Venky Mysore, revealed recently that Bravo, though very successful as captain of the team, had, for a long time, wanted to pass the baton, but he had delayed the action.
"The champion DJ Bravo has been coming to me year after year and asking me to give someone else the captaincy because he wants to just concentrate on playing and enjoying the game,” said Mysore.
Bravo, who recently came out of international retirement, has also played under Pollard for the West Indies and has lauded his approach to captaincy.
“I always told him not until I am ready and that time has come and he is very happy to play under Pollard,” said Mysore.
The TKR will open the CPL season against last year’s beaten finalists, the Guyana Amazon Warriors on August 18.
“Pollard was kind enough to accept the position to lead the team at the tournament. He said if we wanted him to do it he will and we said that we will be delighted to have him as captain again,” said Mysore.
Anderson rejects retirement talk: I'm still hungry to play the game
James Anderson was frustrated with his performance in England's series opener with Pakistan but has no plans to retire from Test cricket just yet.
England claimed an impressive three-wicket win at Old Trafford, chasing down a target of 277 after their bowlers had helped bring them back into the contest late on day three.
However, Anderson struggled at his home ground, at times cutting an exasperated figure as he returned match figures of 1-97.
The seamer admits he struggled for rhythm but, at 38, is focused on rediscovering his best form as he closes in on the milestone of 600 Test wickets.
Asked on a media conference call on Monday whether he was contemplating retirement amid speculation over his future, Anderson emphatically replied: "Absolutely not.
"It's been a frustrating week for me personally because I've not bowled very well, I've felt out of rhythm.
"Probably for the first time in 10 years I got a little bit emotional on the field, started getting frustrated and let that get to me a little bit.
"It reminded me of when I first started playing, when you get frustrated and a little bit angry then you start trying to bowl quicker and quicker, and that obviously doesn't help on the field.
"For me, once we get down to Southampton, it is a case of working really hard over the next couple of days, see if there are any technical issues that I can sort out and just try and work hard and hope that I get the nod for the next game, so I can try and show people that I've still got what it takes to play Test cricket."
While once again pointing out his determination to keep on playing, Anderson acknowledged his future could be taken out of his hands by the selectors.
England are back in action this week, with the second Test against Pakistan beginning on Thursday at the Rose Bowl, and have called up Sussex seamer Ollie Robinson to the squad.
"I want to keep playing for as long as I possibly can," Anderson said. "If I keep bowling the way I did this week, the opportunity to retire will be taken out of my hands.
"I'm still hungry to play the game, I think the frustration for me this week is that after just one bad game, whispers go around, and I don't think that is really fair.
"Something that I have done well throughout my career is deal with the pressure that comes with playing, whether that is pressure of expectation, pressure of the match situation - I feel I've dealt with that pretty well throughout my career.
"This week I probably didn't do that very well. That is something I need to look at and go away, personally look at that and whether I play in the next game or the game after that or if it is in the winter then whenever I play next, I'm ready to be able to cope with that."
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content
of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative,
passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
