“2010 – A busy year for all WI cricketers – A quite successful one for Women’s Team”

Dec 29, 2010 Sports

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By Colin Croft
A review of West Indies regional and international cricket activities, for 2010, shows that it has been one of the most active recent years for West Indies cricket.  The men, and very excitingly, the women’s teams, have been quite busy at home and abroad.   Neither set of players could complain of being under-worked.  Overall, the WI Women were much more dominant, and more successful, than their male counterparts.

With the usual bumps between West Indies Cricket Board and West Indies Players Association, there have been changes in personnel and, hopefully, objectives.  The three formats – Tests, One-Day Internationals and especially T-20’s – all had excellent outings and visibility, if not always the desired WI results.
Our archipelago and Guyana were further enhanced, staging ICC World T-20 2010, for men and women.  The world’s major cricket teams enjoyed our hospitality, fun and madness.  That was a truly enjoyable, remarkably well run, extremely exciting event. The entire Caribbean population, especially St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Guyana and Barbados, the games’ hosts, turned out in tens of thousands, and should take great kudos.
In 2010, Dr. Julian Hunte continued as WICB President, while Dr. Ernest Hilaire became more entrenched as WICB CEO.  Former West Indies fast bowler and England bowling coach, Ottis Gibson, who, like Dr. Hilaire, had stated his tenure late 2009, took full-fledge, control and responsibilities for West Indies cricket.
Dinanath Ramnarine continued as President and CEO of WIPA, while Chris Gayle started 2010 as WI Men’s captain.  By year end, Darren Sammy, St. Lucian, Windward Islands and West Indies all-rounder, had been elevated to team captaincy, but not without fall-outs, again, over contracts, between WICB and WIPA.  Also, despite early-year knee injuries, Merissa Aguilleira maintained the WI Women’s captaincy.
2010 started with West Indies Men completing the 2nd part of an Australian tour.  2010 ended with WI returning from Sri Lanka waterlogged.  The 3-Test series in November-December 2009 and the ODI & T-20 series 2010, were separated by Christmas 2009.  The Test & ODI series 2010 in Sri Lanka were stalemated by rain.
WICB got its preparation incorrect for the Australian tours.  WICB 50-over tournament 2009 preceded the departure to Australia for the Tests, while WICB 4-day tournament 2010 was played before the ODI’s.  With the appropriate tweaking, the 2011 scheduling changes have already been made.
Australia beat West Indies 2-0 in the 3-Test series, with Test 2 drawn, thus retaining the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy, and also won the 5-ODI series:  4-0; and the 2 T-20’s too.  Chris Gayle was still captain and Adrian Barath made a century on debut, in Test 1.  There were also hundreds for Dwayne Bravo and Gayle in Test 2 and Gayle got another in Test 3.  West Indies bowling, though, was somewhat disappointing.
Between January and March 2010, WICB 4-day regional competition was played, while preparations were going apace for the ICC World T-20, scheduled for April and May.
Jamaica claimed its 3rd consecutive tournament win when they embarrassed Trinidad & Tobago in the final round, beating T&T by an innings and 72 runs.  Jamaica finished 3 points ahead of Barbados, with Leeward Islands a distant 3rd and T&T further away; 4th.
Zimbabwe, still looking for readmission to Test cricket, toured West Indies in March, shockingly beating the hosts in the 1st of 5 ODI’s, but eventually losing the series 4-1 to West Indies.  Canada and Ireland also played 50-over games again West Indies.  These games were good warm-ups for the ICC WT-20 2010 in April and May.
WI Women boasted that they would do better than WI Men in ICC T-20 2010.  They kept that word, qualifying well from games in St. Kitts, to play in Semi-final 2, in St. Lucia.  WI Men were eliminated by Australia at the same venue.
Unfortunately, WI Women played their worst game of the tournament in that semi-final, against New Zealand, who, in turn lost a close final, by 3 runs, to their Antipodean nemesis, Australia.  Australia’s Men, bookies’ favorites, lost the final to England, the final games being played at the stunningly refurbished Kensington Oval, in Barbados.
Also in May, West Indies “A” toured Bangladesh for 2 Tests.  WI “A” won 1-0.  The return of “A” team tours continued successfully to England and Ireland in June & July, and a team from WICB High Performance Centre, which had been opened fully, with its first intake of young cricketers in 2010, toured Canada, all excellent for the youth and future of West Indies cricket.  Jamaica also toured USA in May
Even before ICC WT-20 2010, there had been rumblings about WI Men’s captaincy, Gayle’s, and his and several other players’ commitment to West Indies cricket.  By the time the subsequent South Africa tour had ended, the noise was frightfully deafening.
South Africa toured West Indies immediately after the ICC event, playing 3 Tests, winning two convincingly; 5 ODI’s, winning all; and 2 T-20’s, also winning both.
In Test 2, drawn in St. Kitts, Shiv Chanderpaul and Brendon Nash made centuries, but the series was filled with much ‘aggro’ between opposing players.  Some, like Sulleiman Benn, had temporary Test bans imposed.
The time for upheaval, and change, was now upon the West Indies cricket’s embroidery, but lay dormant, allowing the inaugural WICB Caribbean T-20 series to be staged.
This competition had replaced the much admired, but badly damaged series that had been created by disgraced financier, R Allen Stanford.  By this time, he was already in jail!
Guyana emerged as inaugural champions, with a new name, Jonathan Foo, being known, after favorites Jamaica, and finalists, Trinidad & Tobago, faltered badly.  Thus, Guyana represented the Caribbean at Champions League 2010.  They did very poorly indeed!
In September, WICB held its Women’s 50-over League Competition in St. Vincent.  Trinidad & Tobago came out champions.  Soon afterwards, they were in South Africa, for ICC Women’s Challenge Trophy, also featuring Pakistan, Ireland, South Africa and Netherlands, in ODI’s and T-20’s.
West Indies Women were runners-up in ODI’s, and champions in T-20’s.  19 year old batting star Stephanie Taylor also became the youngest player to get 1000 ODI runs.  By year’s end, quite unprecedented, six ladies had been granted retainer contracts by WICB.
In October, Barbados and Leeward Islands shared the regional 50-over title for 2010.
WIPA and WICB fronted each other forcibly when retainer contracts were handed out to men’s players.  Strangely, this fight petered out snugly with WIPA becoming very quiet.
Senior players Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dinesh Ramdin were not offered contracts at all, while Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and Keiron Pollard, all three of whom had made great impacts in Australia’s “Big Bash” and Indian Premier League, refused to sign.
This spelled Gayle’s West Indies captaincy end.  With Sarwan not contracted, and Gayle and Bravo not wanting contracts, Sammy was selected captain for WI last tour of 2010; Sri Lanka.  At least Gayle closed 2010 well, hitting 333 in Test No. 1 v Sri Lanka!
2010 also saw the emergence of left-hander Darren Bravo as a future West Indies batsman of worth, while Kemar Roach has shown maturity and strength for future years.  Like good wine, 2010 was good, especially for WI Women, but there were changes too, from West Indies cricket!

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