WI Domestic Season

For discussion of any non-Zimbabwean cricket.
JHunter
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

So the Regional Super50 is concluded.

The second semi-final saw Barbados Pride beat the Leeward Islands Hurricanes by 110 runs. Shai Hope set up the win with a 125 runs. Kraigg Brathwaite (54) and Jason Holder (42) also contributed with the bat to push Barbados to 314/7 while Carlos Brathwaite (27 and 3-56) put in a very useful allround performance. The Leewards had a good opening bat in Montcin Hodge who put on 63 but nobody else supported him (except Cornwall briefly) and the Leewards were bowled out for 204.

In the final between Jamaica Scorpions and Barbados Pride, Barbados batted first and Jamaica's bowlers had them under control for a good period with Barbados on 138/5 at on point, up until around the 40th-42nd over when Shai Hope and Jason Holder put on 127 runs for the sixth wicket in 13.4 overs (in fact for a six over period they put on 94 runs). There was some odd captaincy by Nikita Miller for Barbados as he didn't bring on Rovman Powell until the 46th over despite Powell having been the key in the demolition of the Trinidad & Tobago team in the semi-final and Powell not being injured. Powell went on to prise out two inexpensive wickets including that of Holder and breaking the Holder/Hope partnership. Barbados finished on 271/9. In reply Jamaica got off to an indifferent start with only Walton making any contribution (26) by the 16th over with 3 wickets lost and then Barbados gutted the Jamaica team to leave them on 122/7 in the 31st over. Rovman Powell went on to offer the only serious resistance for Jamaica by putting on 65 from 59 balls but got insufficient support and was caught by Holder off the bowling of Carlos in the 45th over to end Jamaica's innings on 212 all out, Barbados winning by 59 runs.


As for the standout performances. For batting it was Kieran Powell, Kraigg Brathwaite, Shai Hope, Sunil Ambris (for the Windwards), Jason Mohammed, Rovman Powell and Montcin Hodge. They all scored over 350 runs for the tournament with averages between 44 and 70. Rakheem Cornwall had an average of 50 but scored 252 runs aggregate.

For bowling the most consistent bowlers were Ashley Nurse, Sulieman Benn, Jason Holder (all three figure in the top 10 for number of wickets, averages and econ rates) along with Cottrell, Rampaul and Chase (top 10 in two out of the three categories). Alzarri Joseph, Jerome Taylor and Shannon Gabriel also had very good tournaments (Taylor the most out of those 3).

JHunter
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

And now the selection panel of the WICB (or CWI as it is now can be called) has announced a 15 man training squad and a 12 man President's XI to face England.

The selection panel seems to have decided to keep on previous players even if they didn't do so well in the recently concluded Super50. That's good in that players are being given a run to establish themselves. So we have the 15 man training squad:

Jason Holder (Captain)
Devendra Bishoo
Carlos Brathwaite
Kraigg Brathwaite
Jonathan Carter
Miguel Cummins
Shane Dowrich
Shannon Gabriel
Shai Hope
Alzarri Joseph
Evin Lewis
Jason Mohammed
Ashley Nurse
Kieran Powell
Rovman Powell


....and a 12 man President's XI which includes possible replacements for those in the squad who ultimately don't step up. Persons like Sunil Ambris, Rakheem Cornwall, Montcin Hodge, etc have been rewarded for a good season with a pick for the President's XI:

Jahmar Hamilton (Captain)
Sunil Ambris
Ronsford Beaton
Rahkeem Cornwall
Montcin Hodge
Kyle Hope
Damion Jacobs
Reynard Leveridge
Kyle Mayers
Andre McCarthy
Raymon Reifer
Kemar Roach


For the ODIs against England, I suppose my 12-man pick from the training squad might be:



Kraigg Brathwaite
Kieran Powell
Shai Hope
Jason Mohammed
Shane Dowrich +
Rovman Powell
Jason Holder *
Carlos Brathwaite
Devendra Bishoo
Shannon Gabriel
Ashley Nurse
Alzarri Joseph (12th man)

Reserves:
Jonathan Carter
Miguel Cummins
Evin Lewis

JHunter
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

So the squad for the 1st ODI was:

Jason Holder (c)
Devendra Bishoo
Carlos Brathwaite
Kraigg Brathwaite
Jonathan Carter
Shannon Gabriel
Shai Hope (wk)
Alzarri Joseph
Evin Lewis
Jason Mohammed
Ashley Nurse
Kieran Powell
Rovman Powell


Which was similar to what my pick would have been except Dowrich wasn't included and Jonathan Carter and Evin Lewis were.

Carter proved himself to be have been rightly picked in the final XI with a quick 52 off 47 balls (and that from being on 5 runs off 19 balls at one point).

The final XI (K. Brathwaite, E. Lewis, K. Powell, S. Hope +, J. Mohammed, J. Carter, J. Holder *, C. Brathwaite, A. Nurse, D. Bishoo and S. Gabriel) did not win as England scored 296/6 and WI scored 251 in 47.2 overs.

Encouragingly this XI made a competitive score and was in the chase right up until around the 41st to 46th over. And it didn't include the likes of Gayle, the Bravos, Pollard, Ramdin, etc.

Jimmy Adams as the new director of cricket and the new CEO (Johnny Grave) both seem to want a rethink on the selection policy and a better relationship with the players. I would be cautious about any rethink of selection policy that basically allowed players to get selected for ODIs without playing any List A games, but both of them encouragingly referred to the need for compromise by both sides (board and players). For players who didn't make themselves available for ANY List A games I would not want to see them selected for the ODI squad. Period. It's ridiculous that some players feels so entitled to ODI (and a lesser extent to Test) selection that they think it's a sustainable policy for the WI selectors to pick guys who only play in T20 leagues across the globe. On the flip side, the current policy is too harsh on a player like Marlon Samuels who did play in the Super50 for a couple games if I remember rightly but then went to England (on the WICB's bill and initiative) to have his bowling worked on and then went to the UAE to play in the PSL. I would suggest that the policy allow a player who played in (or at least was available for and was in the territorial squad even if not in the playing XI) for at least 2 or 3 List A games to be eligible for selection to the ODI squad. Thereafter selection would be based on potential or known form (if for instance Player X was in the Leewards squad but not in the final XI due to an niggle at the time or because for whatever reason he wasn't being played in the final XI (like Brandon King for a bit)) and performance in the tournament.

So if say...Dwayne Bravo and Chris Gayle made themselves available for 3 games and played in 2 each but both of them underwhelmed (say no score over 25 in any innings by either) and then went off to one of their overseas leagues, then they would be eligible for selection, but to be fair, those who had performed consistently in 6 or more games (like Jason Mohammed) would have a greater chance of being actually selected.

Had Dwayne Bravo, Gayle and Pollard gotten their way we likely would not have seen Jason Mohammed playing in this ODI and he was the standout batsman apart from Jonathan Carter. Mohammed made 72 off 91 balls. And to top it off based on past experience, I have little doubt that a team composed of say Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Darren Sammy, Marlon Samuels, Lendl Simmons, Sunil Narine (who reportedly doesn't want to play for Trinidad after a leaked TTCB email in which an official accused him of pelting in early 2016 around the time his action was deemed illegal) and Andre Russell would have done much better. Scoring 297 would have been West Indies second highest successful run chase after 300/3 at Centurion against South Africa in 2004 and would have been the highest run chase at home surpassing the 292/6 Arnos Vale against New Zealand in 2002 (both games were during the time of Lara and Chanderpaul). The closest WI has come to a score like that in the post-Lara/post-Chanderpaul era was in 2013 when they scored 289/8 chasing 288 against India at Visakhapatnam. The team then included Johnson Charles, an in-form Kieran Powell, Marlon Samuels, an in-form Darren Bravo, Lendl Simmons, Dwayne Bravo (who didn't contribute much as captain then with 18 off 26 balls and 0-54 off 8 overs), an in-form Darren Sammy, Jason Holder, Sunil Narine, Versammy Permaul and Ravi Rampaul. The team succeeded then because a number of those players were in-form and had been playing domestic List A cricket as well. If the same team were to play again I would have serious doubts at to whether Sammy would have been able to pull off 63 off 45 balls again and Kieran Powell did not make a 59 off 70 balls this time (he only made 1). Instead they might well have folded for 180-220 as happened in the first match of that series against India. Or they might have made 278 as in this match from 2014 (coincidentally also against England and Kieran Powell also made 1 in that match): http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/636535.html


For the next match my XI would be:

Kraigg Brathwaite
Kieran Powell
Shai Hope +
Jason Mohammed
Jonathan Carter
Rovman Powell
Jason Holder *
Carlos Brathwaite
Ashley Nurse
Devendra Bishoo
Shannon Gabriel

cricket_22001
Posts: 338
Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:20 pm

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by cricket_22001 »

There is Hope for the Windies.
Kyle on top of the batting averages & Shai getting a double hundred.
Sorry, couldn't resist.

JHunter
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

Okay, so time for a lot of updates. It's been an extremely busy period for me so haven't been able to update as frequently as I would like.

So here's how things went.

In international cricket the rest of the ODI series with England really only saw Mohammed, Nurse, Carter, Holder and Joseph put in performances. Overall though from the decent showing in the first ODI the team regressed by the end of the series. Following that series there was a T20 series with Pakistan. Originally it was to be 2 matches but then it was stretched to four matches. The first match was won with ease by Pakistan with Carlos Brathwaite being the real stand out performer for WI from that match with both bat and ball. The second match was narrowly lost by WI with a decent bowling performance being let down by the batting in the chase which saw Marlon Samuels stand firm while most of the others fell around him until a late charge by Jason Holder almost helped WI over the line. The third T20, WI won on a canter as a decent bowling performance was this time rewarded with some very good batting by Evin Lewis (scored 91). The fourth T20 was lost by WI after a middling score (helped largely by Chadwick Walton and Carlos Brathwaite) was not adequately defended by the bowling. Following the T20 series there was an ODI series with Pakistan. History was made as in the first ODI, WI made their highest successful run chase at home in ODIs by scoring 309/6 with an over to spare. This was due to the batting clicking in many ways. Lewis made 47 and Kieran Powell made 61. Jason Mohammed made 91 not out off 58 and really took WI home (with Nurse who made 34 not out) when it looked like Pakistan were in control and along the way was cementing his name and place in the squad. As with the ODI series against England though, after the first match the team regressed. Pakistan won the second match handsomely (by 70+ runs), though the margin of defeat could have been much worse as WI were 75/6 at one point chasing 283. The third ODI was in the end lost easily but picking up where they left off when batting and making 208 all out from being 75/6, the WI ground out a score of 233/9 and then had a good shout at controlling the match when they had Pakistan at 36/3. Pakistan regained full control of the match after that and never let go and won by 6 wickets with more than 6 overs to spare.

So overall there is some promise with the ODI squad; they seem to do well in the first match but lose their way from there. However they do seem to have potential.

Next update - the domestic matches.

JHunter
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

Crap.

I had a detailed post about Rounds 6 through 9. And then it got lost as I was posting it. Sorry fellas.

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