Mind The Windows, Tino!

There was no stopping Freddy Flintoff during West Indies tour of England in 2004. Stacks of runs, plenty of wickets, and some priceless sledging saw England’s talisman at his indomitable best. In this clip, Flintoff puts Dwayne Bravo firmly in his place before psyching out tailender Tino Best with hilarious results.

Dwayne Brings The Pain Train

Kevin Pietersen appeared to be cruising towards his third century of the 2007 Test series against the Windies when a bolt from the blue delivered by Dwayne Bravo left England’s No.4 dazed and confused.

Gayle Force

Unfortunately we won’t be seeing Chris Gayle in action during the Test series but the West Indian masterblaster looks set to return for the ODIs that follow after a breakthrough in his feud with the WICB. Here’s a reminder of the damage he’s capable of dishing out. Imagine what he can do with two hands!

Click here to watch last week’s Caught On Camera, featuring some bizarre umpiring decisions

Just one year ago, the very thought of Alastair Cook winning a recall to England’s T20 squad seemed implausible. In the format of boom and bash, Cook’s cautious approach was not deemed the required modus operandi.

But now, with three ODI tons in the last seven months catapulting England’s skipper to eighth place in the one-day rankings, the unthinkable is now, well, thinkable, with Cook being retained for the T20I series against Pakistan.

This prompted a return to my crystal ball to see what other implausibilities could become a reality in 2012. The results may surprise you…

March
Having already turned down a $750k contract to star in the first edition of the Outer Mongolian T20 Premier League, Chris Gayle sensationally rips up his IPL contract and flies back to the Caribbean to resolve his differences with the WICB. Gayle cites his disillusionment with mammon, bling and partying, declares T20 is dead and that Test matches are the future of cricket. He promptly scores an eight-hour 126 in the first Test as West Indies roll over the Aussies in Barbados.

April
The County Championship starts with sold out grounds all over the country as the population flocks to the cricket after finally becoming disillusioned with the preening and overpaid Big Time Charlie’s of Premier League football. Keen to follow the trend, Sky Sports declare the network a football-free zone.

May
Lalit Modi makes an extraordinary return to the BCCI fold and is immediately installed in his former role as IPL chief. Modi promises world domination and the BCCI condemn the use of not only the DRS, but umpires in their entirety after Sachin suffers a dodgy lbw. The ICC says not a word.

June
Michael Clarke breaks David Boon’s record for consuming the most cans of VB on the flight to England for the one-day series. Pup doesn’t feel even slightly tipsy as he disembarks at Heathrow Airport and is rechristened Mongrel.

July
Jonathan Trott hits the fastest ODI hundred in history in the final match of the series with Australia, beating Shahid Afridi’s previous 37-ball mark by two balls with eight fours and eleven towering sixes. Bob Willis criticises him for failing to make the most of the powerplays.

August
In a stunning last-minute climbdown, the ECB shortens the one-day schedule to accommodate a fourth Test with South Africa. England make the most of the extra match and take the series 2-1.

September
To universal acclaim from viewers and his peers, Charles Colville is knighted for services to cricket and sports commentary. Richie Benaud declares him the “doyen of all commentators” and “an inspiration to us all”.

October
Afghanistan win the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka after beating holders England in the final. The underdogs scramble a leg bye off the final ball of the match after England captain Stuart Broad fails to appeal for a plumb leg before off his own bowling.

November
The ECB announces that from the start of the 2014 season the County Championship will take centre stage, with Sky screening one live game from each round of matches. The revamped schedule also sees the opening match between the MCC and county champions taking place in the Falkland Islands at the behest of David Cameron.

December
Despite following Gautam Gambhir’s plea at the start of the year for raging turners, England repeat their whitewash of India last summer by beating the hosts 4-0 to cement their position as the world’s No.1 Test side. Ian Bell masters the spinners and hits three tons on the bounce.

You never know, it could happen…

David Green is the warped mind behind The Reverse Sweep cricket blog and regards Douglas Jardine as his ultimate cricket hero. You can follow David on Twitter @TheReverseSweep

The term ‘sport’s administrative body’ is one that unfortunately appears to be increasingly linked with incompetence. I have said on several occasions that if a board of directors ran their business like FIFA and ICC run their respective sports, they would soon find themselves ousted. However, in sport the powers battles are often protracted and left unresolved.

If ever a sporting administration has been the embodiment of incompetence, it is the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). This is the body that once announced the hiring of a new coach before even discussing terms and conditions with him; the committee that invested the future of the game in the region in the hands of an oil billionaire fraudster; the commercial entity who changed their sponsors only to find that most of its marquee players were still individually contracted to a rival company. And, believe me, the public has merely seen the tip of an iceberg from a body that has lost the trust of cricketers in the Caribbean.

It has often been asked why the greats of previous generations have not been involved with West Indian cricket. The answers are several and simple. Above all, very few of them have any desire to be involved directly with a body as futile as the WICB. Furthermore, there is the story of a Test player who asked for help from a former international star during the 2000 tour of England, only to be told that the legend in question did not have WICB accreditation. This was a young player asking for the assistance of a man with close to 100 Test matches only to be told that this was not possible, just a few days before West Indies were skittled for 54 at Lord’s.

The trail of chaos that the WICB has left in its wake really does beggar belief. And this is why the cricketing public are finding it increasingly difficult to back the board in its battles with senior players. The Chris Gayle episode is becoming more and more of an embarrassment to all parties involved, and it seems unlikely to be resolved any time soon.

Both Sir Vivian Richards and Michael Holding have questioned the moral authority of the WICB to ask Gayle for an apology before they reinstate him. I agree wholeheartedly; had I displayed the incompetence of Ernest Hilaire (Hilair-ious to his critics) and Julian Hunte (best not to say what his critics call him, but there is a parody Twitter account) I would think twice before taking the moral high ground and instructing others to toe the line. As Sir Viv said, “I am not in Chris Gayle’s corner (with) most decisions he makes but I think that this whole issue is potent enough and I feel he needs some support.”

On the other hand, I have often said that playing for West Indies should be a privilege, and the likes of Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo should be concerned with representing the islands ahead of the size of their pay packets. Despite the utter shambles that is the WICB, Gayle should be doing everything in his power to ensure that he is selected for the national side, and this sadly seems to be far from being the case.

Gayle recently signed with Somerset for the Friends Life t20 in England, which starts on June 12, precisely one day after the scheduled end to the West Indies’ Test series in England. That leaves a slight chance that the English public may see the Jamaican representing West Indies on that tour, but it is the slenderest of possibilities, such is the impasse between the two parties at this point.

We often talk about pride before a fall. Well, the pride went out of West Indian cricket a long time ago, in large part to the incompetence of its administrators. There are signs of the green shoots of recovery on the field but until some serious changes are made behind the scenes, West Indian cricket will remain in the wilderness.

Great players forge their reputations on the greatest stage. It’s one of the oldest but truest clichés in sport. Clive Lloyd, Sir Vivian Richards, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Aravinda de Silva; just a few who have graced the global game, and cemented their positions in cricketing folklore with matchwinning centuries in World Cup finals.

Each of those players performed when it mattered most and therefore solidified their standing in the game. The talismanic Englishman Andrew Flintoff personifies this better than many. Five Test centuries and an average of 31.77 and 226 Test Wickets at 32.78 is by no means a special record at the highest level but Freddie was a larger than life character who in 2005 lit up the greatest stage in English cricket – an Ashes series.

Had he never played again, his place in history was secured. The fact that he went on to play a key role in reclaiming the urn in 2009 ensured his place in the pantheon of the English greats, and his questionable leadership during the 2006/07 Ashes and his pedalo antics in the Caribbean were merely a distant memory. Some may argue that he was forgiven for those blips because people saw him as one of their own, a bit of a mischievous larrikin, Freddie the lad. But I suspect without his Ashes heroics, the English cricketing public wouldn’t have been quite so quick to forgive and forget.

As with Flintoff, Chris Gayle appears carefree in his approach to the game but his Test match record is highly respectable with over 6,000 runs at an average of 41.65. And of course, his scintillating performances in ODI and T20 cricket have gained him a reputation as a crowd-pleaser who justifies an entrance fee alone.

However, patience is wearing thin with him amongst the Caribbean cricketing fraternity. Over the last few years Gayle has consistently been at odds with the West Indian authorities, perhaps dating back to his comment in 2007 that he would not be overly disappointed if Test cricket died out. As the captain of a Test side who flew in to the country a mere 48 hours before the start of a series due to ‘financial commitments’ in the IPL, this was unsurprisingly not received well.

His most recent feud with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is nothing new in Caribbean cricket. The truth is that they have been mistreating players for years, and there are only too many players – past and present – who would testify to this. However, the response to Gayle’s stance is in stark contrast to that towards Shiv Chanderpaul, who was equally critical of the authorities but unwavering in his desire to represent West Indies.

Moreover, Chanderpaul has time and time again performed for West Indies in times of crisis and in pressure situations, proving his commitment and his ability to rise to the big occasion. Gayle, for all his spectacular performances, has consistently failed to deliver when it has mattered most:

Champions Trophy final 2004 – 23
Champions Trophy final 2006 – 37
World Cup quarter-final 2011 – 8
IPL final 2011 – 0
Champions League T20 final 2011 – 5

In each of these tournaments Gayle played a starring role but when the opportunity to establish himself as a ‘great’ rather than a ‘crowd-pleaser’ presented itself, he misread the script. This is why West Indian supporters – despite universally accepting that West Indies would be better with his presence – are finding it much more difficult to support him than they have other players in conflict with the WICB.

His career has had many highlights but still represents unfulfilled potential on the biggest stage and he has continued to let down West Indian supporters when they’ve needed him most. They say that champions are born and not made and Chris Gayle risks leaving behind a legacy as a would-be champion who never did justice to his vast talent.

Caribbean scribes such as myself have had scarce opportunity to report on positive performances from West Indies in recent times but there have been moments to warm the soul in Twenty20 cricket, particularly against England – with West Indies having triumphed in four of the five clashes between the sides coming into the most recent series.

Such has been the inconsistency of West Indian cricket in recent years that there is a habit of receiving every victory as the dawn of a glorious new era but the chastening reality of Sunday’s victory over England in the second of the two T20 internationals is that it was an isolated win in a series which should never have been scheduled in the first place.

That said, in a late September chill, two patchwork sides put together some entertaining cricket over the weekend, even if the quality was at times lacking. There was certainly no shortage of commitment, although the West Indies looked shell-shocked and understandably rusty during their comprehensive defeat in Friday’s opening stanza. England will have some concerns, especially surrounding their ability to put scores together on slow, worn pitches. The truth is that most international sides find it difficult in such conditions and England can be relatively optimistic about their prospects of defending their crown in next year’s ICC World Twenty20.

From a West Indian perspective, these games have raised as many questions as they have provided answers. The first major issue remains the captaincy and whether Darren Sammy warrants a place in their strongest side. Sammy is not the most aesthetically pleasing of cricketers and his statistics don’t stand up to scrutiny, but the St Lucian’s attitude and commitment has put so many of the prima donnas and underachievers of West Indian cricket to shame. He consistently speaks of giving everything when out on the field and several players in the recent history of the islands would do well to learn from his example. He does not pick and choose when to play for West Indies and he wears the cap with pride. He might not be a world-beater but playing for his country is clearly more important to him than the number of zeros in his bank account.

The biggest question moving forward is whether the selectors continue to persevere with those that are talented but have been consistently inconsistent in both performance and application, or do they allow coach Ottis Gibson and Sammy to start with clean slate and blood a group of youngsters – some of whom have displayed real talent – but accept that results will be patchy at best in the coming years. After all, results can’t be much worse than they have been in recent years and it would be much more palatable watching a young side showing commitment but falling short as opposed to highly paid ‘superstars’ with their hands in their pockets and lacking the stomach for a fight.

Whichever route they take, the selectors must show consistency, and that may well mean persisting with some of these youngsters even when the likes of Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo decide that they want to play for their country. In the case of Bravo it should be said that he has been available for selection on most occasions but the selectors seem to have grave concerns over his knees in particular, and his fitness in general.

There are only so many times that the selectors can continue going back to the same players who have continually let them and the West Indian public down. The time has come when they have to decide on the futures of players like Dinesh Ramdin, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Jerome Taylor, Fidel Edwards, and others whose contributions have continued to do little justice to their talents, whether due to form or injury. The same applies to Gayle and Pollard, who need to prove that they should be there instead of youngsters who want to be. The road will be long and hard for West Indies, but talents like Adrian Barath, Kemar Roach, Andre Russell and Devendra Bishoo at least offer hope. It should be exciting to watch but, then again, it always is with West Indies.

Sport has changed, and the power base has shifted considerably from the administrators to the players in recent times. Whilst some would argue that this was not a day too soon, I can’t help but feel we’re heading down a path of destruction.

It is all too easy to be romantic when we look back at a bygone era. The WICBC, as it was then called, has a long history of mistreating its players. Just flick through the autobiography of any of the West Indian greats for proof of that.

Back then, of course, there was no such thing as WIPA and the players were held to ransom; the authorities knowing that the players had no choice but to accept the derisory packages on offer. This was the forerunner to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, but despite player’s receiving more substantial pay packets, it was still the boards that called the shots during the 80s in international cricket.

It was only in the 90s that money was ploughed into cricket on a global scale, mainly by television companies. In the 20-year period since, the landscape of cricket has changed forever, and it is a sport now run by the players and their associations. The problem in the Caribbean is that West Indian players are still poor relations to most of their international peers, with the WICB a startling example of everything that an administrative body should strive not to be. It lacks consistency, cohesion, accountability and leadership, and has for several years been at loggerheads with the WIPA. Can anyone forget the farcical transition of sponsorship from Cable and Wireless to Digicel?

If it has not been one senior player at odds with the board, it has been another, this all during an era where the West Indies have consistently been an embarrassment on the field. Currently the WIPA are engaged in a lawsuit with the WICB for circa £12 million. They are citing restraint of trade, due to the WICB’s refusal to grant unconditional No Objection Certificates to their players.

Essentially, a No Objection Certificate would give the players the right to choose where and when they represent their country. This is of course very topical given that West Indian players have been globetrotting to play in various lucrative T20 competitions. Looking at the West Indies squad for the T20 internationals in England at the end of the month, it could be argued that the WICB are already in compliance, with the names of Chris Gayle, the Bravo brothers, Kieron Pollard, Ravi Rampaul and Lendl Simmons just a few of those missing.

The ludicrous nature of this scenario is not lost on many. The WICB have themselves been guilty of selling out to the dollar of T20; this is why they have to play these two ridiculously scheduled matches in England as fallout from the Stanford deal which went so horribly awry when the great new benefactor of West Indian cricket was exposed as being nothing other than a fraud and a criminal.

Whilst it is clear that the WICB don’t have the financial riches of other member bodies, one has to wonder how much they should and could have learnt from the central contracts that have so benefited the more successful nations in the modern game.

Even withstanding that option, there have been occasions on which to engage the players. However, the board’s reputation is at such a low ebb with the Caribbean cricketing public, the players can get away with fighting the board to the detriment of the game in the region, because the public sympathises with them.

I would perhaps have more sympathy with the players if they showed even the merest morsel of pride and professionalism when they take to the field for West Indies. These same players who shine as world stars in the big money competitions continue to embarrass and shame the West Indian cricketing public as soon as they play for their country.

However, it is essential that WIPA do not win this court case – if they do, how long will it be before cricket administrators across the globe are held to ransom? But, that said, it is time for the WICB to clean up its act once and for all.

It is a double-edged sword, and one which again illustrates the depths to which this once mighty group of islands have sunk. Time will tell, but the High Court of Trinidad may be the most significant playing field that West Indian cricket has seen in recent years.

Kumar Sangakkara’s almost Churchillian MCC Spirit of Cricket lecture at Lord’s, where he related the history of Sri Lanka and how cricket slipped “through the crack in our anti-western defences and has now become the most precious heirloom of our British Colonial inheritance”, was a truly fascinating one.

But not everyone enjoyed the lecture. Sri Lankan sports minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage ordered a probe after Sangakkara was particularly scathing about political interference from “partisan cronies” that has led to “corruption and wanton waste of cricket board finances and resources”.

This would appear to be the real reason why Sangakkara resigned the captaincy so abruptly after the World Cup and why he was such a reluctant leader when Dilshan was ruled out of the third Test at The Rose Bowl.

Sadly, the travails of the Sri Lanka Cricket Board – the postponement by a year of the Sri Lankan Premier League is another indicator of their woes – are shared by a growing number of their counterparts worldwide

Chris Gayle’s increasingly fraught confrontation with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) seems to have reached the point of no return with his recent public statement. West Indies cricket can ill afford to be at war with its star batsman but have effectively exiled him from their struggling team. Indeed, the pressure on WICB has become so great that WICB Exposé – a blog purporting to leak classified information from within the WICB itself – has made a number of shocking revelations in recent months. Anyone with an interest in WI cricket and a couple of hours to spare would do well to pay WICB Exposé a visit. It raises some interesting questions.

The extent of the problems in Sri Lanka and with the WICB has taken the spotlight somewhat off the Pakistan Cricket Board and its chairman Ijaz Butt. Since he took over in 2008, the PCB has lurched from crisis to crisis and seems to have failed in its primary role – that being supporting Pakistani cricket. The spot-fixing scandal and the fact that Pakistan have been unable to play at home since the Lahore attack of 2009 have hardly helped but Butt has at times appeared to make the situation worse, interfering and making bizarre public statements.

Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. Cricket Australia was once held up as the shining beacon for all cricket boards to aspire. They had an all-conquering side, a domestic set-up envied by all and an infrastructure that suggested the future was assured. Much has changed though and the situation Down Under is now far less optimistic.

Even taking into account the inevitable dip that was going to follow the retirement of legends like Warne, McGrath and Gilchrist, the decline has been alarming. This was highlighted in the Ashes series – first with the naming of a 17-man squad at the behest of Cricket Australia’s own marketing department and then a number of interesting selections, such as Xavier Doherty. The recent dropping of Simon Katich, a man who averaged 47 in the last two years, has raised more questions about the role of Andrew Hilditch, Australia’s Chairman of Selectors – a man appointed by Cricket Australia.

It’s not just the national team either, with the strange (and now mercifully aborted) experiment with split innings in domestic one-day matches and the organisation being increasingly in thrall to Twenty20. Even worse could follow with the new franchise Big Bash League, something that Gideon Haigh believes could be disastrous for the future of Australian cricket.

The Board Of Control For Cricket In India (BCCI), while not perceived by many as a paragon of virtue, is in rude health by comparison. Its team are the top ranked Test side and World Cup holders and the IPL effectively remains a licence to print money. However, allegations of corruption and conflicts of interest with regards to ownership of the IPL franchises in particular continue to abound.

And what of the ECB? Well, unfortunate liaisons with shady characters like Allen Stanford aside, it seems to be performing effectively, although that’s always easier when the team is on a high. The England team are thriving and the infrastructure in place for future player development seems relatively sound. There are concerns of course: the packed domestic fixture schedule, the absence of 50 over cricket at county level, financial problems in maintaining 18 counties and the issues surrounding the process of awarding international matches to grounds, but compared to other international board the ECB certainly stands up well to scrutiny.

With problems affecting most boards across the globe, Sangakkara hit the nail on the head when he said that a solution could be the ICC “taking a stand to suspend member boards with any direct detrimental political interference and allegations of corruption and mismanagement. This will negate the ability to field representative teams or receive funding and other accompanying benefits from the ICC”.

The recent ICC Conference suggested that something along these lines will be implemented in the coming years. It cannot come too soon for the likes of Sangakkara and Gayle.

David Green is the warped mind behind The Reverse Sweep cricket blog and regards Douglas Jardine as his ultimate cricket hero. You can follow David on Twitter @TheReverseSweep

The enigmatic masterblaster showed West Indies what they are missing in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s IPL victory over Kochi Tuskers Kerala on Sunday with a record-breaking display that saw Gayle slaughter Prasanth Parameswaran for 37 runs in one over.

Gayle had already responded to his omission from West Indies’ ODI squad to face Pakistan by smashing centuries in victories over Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab and he further cranked up the gears against IPL new boys Kochi, blazing 44 off 16 balls to ease Bangalore to a fifth straight win and maintain their push for a semi-final berth. In the process, the unfortunate Parameswaran made history by becoming the first bowler to concede 37 runs off one over in senior cricket.

Sir Garry Sobers and Ravi Shastri both famously hit six sixes in one over off Malcolm Nash and Tilak Raj respectively in first-class cricket, while Herschelle Gibbs achieved the feat in the 2007 World Cup and Yuvraj Singh dispatched Stuart Broad for half a dozen maximums in the inaugural World Twenty20 later that year to join the exclusive six sixes club.

We at AOC want to hear your stories of similar devastation in club cricket. Were you the batsman dishing out the destruction? Or perhaps you were the sorry bowler who received the punishment? Maybe you were just a witness to the demolition. Whatever your story, we want to hear your tales of annihilation and humiliation. You can share your story by either leaving a comment at the bottom of this article or by posting it on our Facebook page.