WI Domestic Season

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JHunter
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

So the second round is almost concluded and the scoring has been even better than in the first round and much improved from the second round of the 2014/15 season.

We saw the first instance of a team surpassing 400 runs this season (Guyana) and two scores which were just short of the 250 mark (T&T making 246 and Barbados making 243/5d in their second innings) and one score which was just short of the 300 run mark (Windwards 299 when following on). So even though the stats will read as their being only 1 score of 300 and 1 score of 400 and a total of 4 scores of 250 or more, this round was only 12 runs short of having 2 scores of 300, 1 score of 400 and a total of 6 scores of 250 or more (54% of the innings).

Thus far the stats for the 2015/16 PCL season are:

Round-----Total scores of 250 or more-----Total Innings-----% of 250+ scores-----Total Runs-----Runs/innings-----Highest score-----300+ scores-----400+ scores

1-----3-----11-----27.27%-----2190-----199.09-----373-----3-----0
2-----4-----11-----36.36%-----2518-----228.90-----419/9d-----1-----1 (completed with T&T Red Force drawing the match after making 182/4 in pursuit of 298)

Overall while disappointingly the proportion of 250+ scores is still around a third of the innings thus far, encouragingly this is happening from the start of the first two rounds rather than by round 4 as happened last season. If the teams begin to start scoring better by round 4-6 as happened last season then the overall season average for 250+ run scores as a percentage of total innings should be improved upon last season, and perhaps by next season or the season after that we can look forward to more improvements (barring any disruptions).

Train Driver
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by Train Driver »

Funny old goings on in Roseau as Leeward Islands declare their 1st innings at 24-7, Windward Islands 104-5 at the close with only 43 overs bowled in the day

JHunter
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

Train Driver wrote:Funny old goings on in Roseau as Leeward Islands declare their 1st innings at 24-7, Windward Islands 104-5 at the close with only 43 overs bowled in the day

Quite. The WICB is going to investigate the pitch.

Apparently this was the first match on the ground following the devastation of Hurricane Erika back in September. Don't know if that had anything to do with it, but if so it would have been prudent for the Windwards board to at least have had a practice match on the ground to see how it would play.

The third round is now done and dusted and the average runs per innings has dropped quite a bit for this round, mainly due to that match in Roseau:

2015/16 PCL season:

Round-----Total scores of 250 or more-----Total Innings-----% of 250+ scores-----Total Runs-----Runs/innings-----Highest score-----300+ scores-----400+ scores

1-----3-----11-----27.27%-----2190-----199.09-----373-----3-----0
2-----4-----11-----36.36%-----2518-----228.90-----419/9d-----1-----1
3-----4-----12-----33.33%-----2039-----169.92-----337-----1-----0


Guyana continues to dominate so far. In three matches they have scored first innings totals of 362, 419/9d and 337. Their only blemish has been a second innings score of 95 all out in the very first match against the Windwards (they won that match by 104 runs anyway). As would be expected from such a dominant performance they have quite a bit of daylight between themselves and the other teams in the points table with Guyana on 53 points, the Leewards at the bottom with 7 points and all the rest in the middle on 21 to 34 points.

The mainstay of Guyana's batting has been Vishaul Singh. He debuted in 2009 for first-class cricket but only got his maiden ton in December 2014. When he has gotten tons though he has scored reasonably big: 141 (maiden ton), 150 and 121. Not 100 flat and out. For the rest of the 2014/2015 season following his maiden ton in December 2014 his scores were: 6, 14, 23, 22*, 60, 14, 5, 57, 52, 41* and 22 (average: 35). His overall average in 2014/2015 was 39.91.

For this season he has had scores of 48, 24, 151 and 120 with an average of 85.75. It's very early days yet, but he does look promising and if he maintains that kind of average it would not surprise me if he makes it into the West Indies A team and maybe the West Indies senior team.

JHunter
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

The fourth round is completed and despite some poor innings the overall average per innings is higher now as a result of the few good innings being really good innings (261/7d and 296 by Barbados Pride and 475 by Guyana Jaguars):

2015/16 PCL season:

Round-----Total scores of 250 or more-----Total Innings-----% of 250+ scores-----Total Runs-----Runs/innings-----Highest score-----300+ scores-----400+ scores

1-----3-----11-----27.27%-----2190-----199.09-----373-----3-----0
2-----4-----11-----36.36%-----2518-----228.90-----419/9d-----1-----1
3-----4-----12-----33.33%-----2039-----169.92-----337-----1-----0

BREAK

4-----3-----11-----27.27%-----2619-----238.09-----475-----1-----1

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jaybro
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by jaybro »

Hunter please fill me what's going with the Windies ??? Surely there are better batsman around in the Caribbean .....

Chandrika and Hope have only 1 first class century each ( I think ) and they're the options to open the batting ???

I know Chris Gayle, Pollard and Dwayne Bravo are unavailable but apart from Gayle the other two arnt exactly test specialists are they ??

What's happened to Barath, Kieran Powell etc ???
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JHunter
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Re: WI Domestic Season

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jaybro wrote:Hunter please fill me what's going with the Windies ??? Surely there are better batsman around in the Caribbean .....
Yes and no.

Yes there are better options....

...but no, there are no better options currently available (Gayle isn't available, Sarwan doesn't seem to be into it anymore as he has twice withdrawn from representing first-class teams in domestic cricket, Chanderpaul retired, Dwayne Bravo basically retired in 2010 - see below)...


Chandrika and Hope have only 1 first class century each ( I think ) and they're the options to open the batting ???
Chandrika is a opening bat for Guyana, Hope does not open for Barbados. I'm not sure why they kept trying to shoe-horn Hope in as an opener. In my opinion if they were to drop say Roach and Gabriel and bring in Carlos Brathwaite and put Hope in at No. 6, then the bowling will be weakened somewhat (but not that significantly), while the batting would be strengthened and Hope would have more of an opportunity to play in the middle order which is where he produced the results that got him picked in the first place.......

Heck they could even keep one out of Roach and Gabriel, drop Chandrika and put in Carlos Brathwaite as an opener and slot Hope in the middle order and it might be better (Carlos seems like he might do better at the role than either Hope or Chandrika given his batting in the tour matches so far).
I know Chris Gayle, Pollard and Dwayne Bravo are unavailable but apart from Gayle the other two arnt exactly test specialists are they ??
Gayle's availability has been touch and go for many reasons for a long time. He's a very good batsman, but between injuries and sometimes his focus being elsewhere, his availability hasn't been anywhere near as consistent as that of opening batsmen for other teams. Nowadays it is such that people don't even seem to expect him to be there.

Dwayne Bravo isn't a test specialist, nor is he even really a first class specialist. I would never call for him to be a part of any test team of any nation because to be frank, his attitude to the long-form game is dismal. Bravo will wax on about selection injustices and at times proclaim he would like to play test cricket, but then he is constantly unavailable for first-class cricket which means there is no basis on which to judge his first-class form. His last first-class match was on March 23, 2013 (T&T v Combined Colleges and Campuses) and before that 2012/2013 season and the previous season (2011/2012), the last time he had played non-test, domestic first-class cricket was in the 2007/2008 domestic season (March 7, 2008 - T&T v Windward Islands). So he has a four year gap between playing a few domestic first-class matches and then having been selected for T&T squad in the Professional Cricket League in the 2014/2015 season announced his withdrawal from the squad and unavailability for first-class cricket in February 2015 without having played in a single match. His "retirement" from test cricket in January 2015 merely formalizes what had been the case since his last test match in December 2010 against Sri Lanka.

Pollard has been more available for first-class cricket, having played in 8 of the 9 seasons since 2007. I think Pollard at least should have been given a stint on the West Indies A team between 2010 and 2015. He may have surprised people. But in any case he has taken an "indefinite break" from first-class cricket since his last first-class match in March 2015 (for T&T against the Windward Islands)
What's happened to Barath, Kieran Powell etc ???
Barath asked for time off from the game in December 2014: http://www.stabroeknews.com/2014/sports ... y-cricket/

Kieran Powell took time off for personal reasons in June 2014 and after that it seems there was some issues which developed concerning his return (with disputed accounts surrounding whether he was to return to the team straightaway or to play in the domestic competition first, etc) and then he went to Sri Lanka to play club cricket for a bit.

Note: Edited to include mention of Bravo's stint in the 2011/12 season
Last edited by JHunter on Thu Dec 17, 2015 3:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

JHunter
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

The fifth round is completed and despite some mediocre innings the overall average per innings is better than for the corresponding round last season, again as a result of the few good innings being really good innings (382 by Trinidad Red Force, 368 by Barbados Pride, 282 by Guyana Jaguars and 306 by Windwards Volcanoes):

2015/16 PCL season:

Round-----Total scores of 250 or more-----Total Innings-----% of 250+ scores-----Total Runs-----Runs/innings-----Highest score-----300+ scores-----400+ scores

1-----3-----11-----27.27%-----2190-----199.09-----373-----3-----0
2-----4-----11-----36.36%-----2518-----228.90-----419/9d-----1-----1
3-----4-----12-----33.33%-----2039-----169.92-----337-----1-----0

BREAK

4-----3-----11-----27.27%-----2619-----238.09-----475-----1-----1

BREAK

5-----4-----11-----36.36%-----2443-----222.09-----368-----3-----0


What is interesting is that for this round, the Barbados v Leewards game saw Barbados batting again needing to score 1 run (which they did) in order to win (scores Barbados Pride 368 and 1/0 beat Leewards Hurricanes 170 and 198). Had the Leewards only scored 197 batting again, then Barbados would have won by an innings and one run and the stats for the round would have looked like this:

5-----4-----10-----40.00%-----2441-----244.10-----368-----3-----0


Comparing this season to last season, the teams have scored 962 more runs cumulatively between Rounds 1 and 5 and racked up 9 scores of 300+ runs and 2 scores of 400+ runs versus 7 300+ scores in 2014/2015 and 3 400+ scores in 2014/2015. In no round thus far has there been an instance where at least one team hasn't scored 300 runs or more in an innings and twice this season we saw 3 scores of 300+ runs in a round. The average runs/innings of all 5 rounds to date is around 210 versus 204 for 2014/2015 and this I think best reflects what has happened so far: (very) marginal improvement.

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jaybro
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by jaybro »

Thanks for the insight Hunter as many cricket fans over the world will agree it's very sad to see the Windies in such dire straights I never got to see the golden era play but have always enjoyed watching them and their style ......
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JHunter
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

jaybro wrote:Thanks for the insight Hunter as many cricket fans over the world will agree it's very sad to see the Windies in such dire straights I never got to see the golden era play but have always enjoyed watching them and their style ......
Yes it is sad, but it isn't unexpected. At least not on my part. West Indies went through a very damaging period in the 2000s and 15-20 years of damage will not be undone overnight. And during that time, hidings should be expected. WI may even be irreparably damaged in the test arena. Even so attempts have to be made to try to fix the problems where they have been identified (and to identify problems which haven't even been recognized).

For my part I'm more hopeful that like Bangladesh, WI will now stick with a young core/crop of players and invest in them. I was far too tired of the drama that the likes of Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Pollard, Dwayne Smith and Sarwan constantly brought (which earned them and others the monikers of "prima donnas" by some West Indians). If I wanted to watch a soap opera I knew the appropriate channels to watch and TENSports was not one of them. Sure that set of players performed better than this current crop, but in end they still lost often and lost badly (a fact which many seem to forget either willfully or as a result of merely looking at the "flair" of these players - thanks, but no thanks...I would rather have boring and sedate players that work hard like Kraigg Brathwaite and Shiv over flashy but lazy players who give you glimpses of brilliance amidst long stretches of mediocrity; ideally it would be great to have flash, brilliant players that work hard and produce results but most of the former set definitely do NOT fall into that category).

This set may lose more badly, but perhaps like the Bangladeshis they will improve if given the time and invested in. The former crop were far too old and stuck in their ways to improve significantly. They could still push out perhaps another 5-10 years worth of playing time, but really, what is point in sticking with them for so long when they don't have the heart for it themselves (most were quite willing to abandon test cricket for various T20 leagues and didn't seem to recognize that one could have a balance) and when realistically the results were only going to be the same? Results may be worse now in terms of the margins and manner of defeat, but the results are still defeats and at least now there is potential for results in the future to be more draws and even victories. Expecting that overnight though is to set yourself up for disappointment, as even the Australians didn't magically turn things around overnight in the 1980s.

JHunter
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

jaybro wrote:Thanks for the insight Hunter as many cricket fans over the world will agree it's very sad to see the Windies in such dire straights I never got to see the golden era play but have always enjoyed watching them and their style ......
So remember what I said about Dwayne Bravo and his patchy commitment to first class cricket leading up to test hiatus and eventual retirement?
Dwayne Bravo isn't a test specialist, nor is he even really a first class specialist. I would never call for him to be a part of any test team of any nation because to be frank, his attitude to the long-form game is dismal. Bravo will wax on about selection injustices and at times proclaim he would like to play test cricket, but then he is constantly unavailable for first-class cricket which means there is no basis on which to judge his first-class form. His last first-class match was on March 23, 2013 (T&T v Combined Colleges and Campuses) and before that 2012/2013 season and the previous season (2011/2012), the last time he had played non-test, domestic first-class cricket was in the 2007/2008 domestic season (March 7, 2008 - T&T v Windward Islands). So he has a four year gap between playing a few domestic first-class matches and then having been selected for T&T squad in the Professional Cricket League in the 2014/2015 season announced his withdrawal from the squad and unavailability for first-class cricket in February 2015 without having played in a single match. His "retirement" from test cricket in January 2015 merely formalizes what had been the case since his last test match in December 2010 against Sri Lanka.
Now square his playing career of playing NO domestic first class cricket at all between March 2008 and February 2012 (and his last first class match of any kind being December 2010) with these recent statements:

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2015-12- ... -selectors
Bravo blasts poor treatment by selectors

...but says he’s still committed to Windies

Published:
Thursday, December 17, 2015

MELBOURNE, Australia—All-rounder Dwayne Bravo says he is still committed to playing for West Indies but was forced to quit Test cricket because of the poor treatment meted out to him by selectors.

Speaking ahead of his campaign in the Big Bash League for Melbourne Renegades, Bravo told media here that with little interest coming from selectors he had turned his attention to the lucrative Twenty20 leagues across the globe.

“Until earlier this year I was still interested to play Test cricket but I have yet to hear anything from any selector, what their plans are for me, what my position is,” Bravo lamented.

“I just decided it’s time to move on with my life and try to channel my energy in different places.

I would have loved the opportunity to play Test cricket again but since being dropped back in 2010 I never got the chance and I just decided to call it a day.”

He continued: “I’m not shutting down my opportunities to represent the West Indies, I still 100 per cent want to play for the West Indies in One-Day internationals and T20s.”

The 32-year-old played the last of his 40 Tests five years ago after scoring 2200 runs at an average of 31 and taking 86 wickets at an average of nearly 40. Following this protracted absence from the side, Bravo announced his retirement from the longer format in January this year.

He was appointed One-Day captain in 2013 but axed a year and a half later after he helped lead the players fight against the West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players Association, which resulted in the controversial abandoned tour of India.

Bravo said many West Indies players felt more respected outside of the Caribbean, and this was behind their decision to ply their trade in tournaments like the Big Bash.

“I get frustrated at times, not only for myself but for all the other cricketers, Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy, Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell, we all want to represent West Indies,” Bravo said.

“But sometimes the way we have been treated over the years … why should we actually fight with West Indies’ cricket where the rest of the world opens their arms for us? “Yes they pay us well but at the same time we never feel disrespect in any way when we play for those teams around the world. We feel love.

We feel well-respected. Do we get that type of treatment back in the region? No we don’t.” The T&T-born player has continued to feature in the West Indies T20 squad, however, and was part of the Sammy led squad which lost 2-1 to Sri Lanka in a three-match series last month.

However, with the ICC T20 World Cup slated to bowl off in March next year, Bravo said he was taking nothing for granted about his selection.

“I would love to think that I would be good enough and have done enough to get selected for the T20 World Cup but I’m not saying anything. I don’t know,” he mused. (CMC)
Bravo has it backwards. It was he who showed little interest in first class cricket after March 2008 and turned his attention to various T20 leagues across the globe, and only afterwards did the selectors stop picking him (after December 2010) for test cricket. He is either quite naive or taking his audience for fools if he seriously believes selectors can really be expected to show interest in selecting a guy for test cricket when that fella hasn't played any first-class cricket whatsoever in almost 2 years (and just what kind of message would that be sending to other, younger players who are being encouraged to participate in the first-class competition if a player gets selected continually for test cricket on the basis of his limited overs form?). Even Gayle went through a similar period (last domestic first class before December 2010 being Jamaica v Windward Islands in March 2008 after which he played tests for two years before not featuring again in any first class cricket until 2012), but at least Gayle had the sense to play at least ONE domestic first class match (Jamaica v Windward Islands in February 2012 where he scored 165 in the second innings) before getting selected again for test cricket in July 2012 and played in the domestic league again in 2013 before his latest hiatus starting in late 2014 due to injury.

Bravo meanwhile did also play in the 2011/12 season like Gayle. He played a solitary match (against Combined Campuses and Colleges - which was often considered a Barbados "A" team) where he scored 11 & 13 and took 2/38 (with 4 no balls) in 12 overs in the first innings (he was the most expensive bowler and the least economical) and 0/17 (with 1 wide and 2 no balls) in 5 overs in the second innings (he was the second least economical bowler after the much younger and less experienced Yanick Cariah; no other bowler save Cariah had an economy rate of over 2.6). Now while Trinidad & Tobago did win that match and Bravo certainly contributed, his individual contribution wasn't anything to write home about (unlike Gayle's 165 in the second innings) as his batting returns were poor (Pollard scored 60 in the first innings and Ramdin scored 40 in the second innings and even Jason Mohammed was consistently better scoring 20 & 31) and his bowling returns were likewise nothing to get very excited about (especially given his experience).

He then didn't play any more first-class matches until March 2013 (against Guyana and then Combined Colleges and Campuses). In the victory against Guyana he scored a duck and T&T declared before he could bat in the second innings; his bowling returns were better than in 2012 with 2/37 (including 1 wide) off 12 overs (he was more economical than Gabriel and Jaggernauth) and 2/49 (with 1 wide and 4 no balls) off 13.4 overs (he was more economical than Gabriel). Those kind of bowling returns though, while good were not particularly outstanding. In the victory against Combined Campuses and Colleges he scored 60 in the first innings and T&T won long before he could bat in the second innings. In the first innings though Jason Mohammed scored 138, Pollard scored 45, Katwaroo scored 50 and Cariah scored 43* , so while his score was good, it was good among a number of other pretty decent or very good scores. He also did not bowl in either innings. And he was the captain. So it wasn't like someone denied him the opportunity to bowl.

Overall his return to first-class cricket in 3 matches between 2012 and 2013 saw him score 84 runs over 4 innings (avg: 21) and take 6/141 off 42.4 overs (avg: 23.5, econ rate: 3.30; strike rate: 7.11) with 3 wides and 10 no balls.

He was clearly not as good a first-class player as he used to be and I doubt he would be any better now.

He would make an excellent politician though given how easily he seems to spin things.

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