Tony Cozier

THE opposition was embarrassingly weak, its frailties exposed mostly by a reinstated off-spinner on pitches that provided exaggerated turn and bounce.

HAD it not involved the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), it could be simply dismissed as far-fetched fiction.

At a time when the idea of dividing Test cricket into two tiers is again gathering influential support, the West Indies forthcoming Tests against Zimbabwe take on a special significance.

BY its very nature, there are few more thankless jobs than that of the West Indies cricket selectors.

The immigration officer at Grantley Adams International seemed bemused when I told him I was flying to Grenada to cover “the cricket”.

IT is a question that still has to be adequately answered five years after Kieron Pollard entered international cricket in the 2007 World Cup, aged 19, a massive unit with a justifiable reputation as an awesome hitter.

NOT unexpectedly, the International Cricket Council (ICC) last week gave an unequivocal endorsement to the domestic Twenty20 tournaments that continue to proliferate wherever the game is played.

By Tony Cozier ON the face of it, West Indies’ recent records in Australia place into numbing context what they might expect on their return for five ODIs and a one-off Twenty 20, the first of which is at the WACA ground in Perth on Friday.

Clyde Butts and his selection panel had a couple of contrasting dilemmas to resolve last week as they sorted out the West Indies squad for the five One-Day Internationals and one Twenty20 in Australia next month.

Stabroek Sports’ columnist Tony Cozier is of the view that West Indies cricket should be very concerned over the worrying standards of the game being exhibited at the Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad in the regional T20 tournament Had he watched the early matches in the regional Twenty20 from his luxury villa on Barbados’ west coast this past week, Verus International’s head honcho Ajmal Khan might have wondered just what he got himself into,

The tributes presented a wide range of personifications. To those who knew him, played with and against him and worked alongside him, Tony Greig was, at one and the same time, ‘combative’, ‘controversial’, ‘spirited’, ‘knowledgeable’, ‘opinionated’, ‘entertaining’, ‘self-confident’.

By Tony Cozier West Indies  cricket in 2012 could at last swap the fixed frown of despair that had long since been its troubling trademark for the semblance of a smile.

As the outline of Twenty20 Caribbean Premier League was revealed last week, Julian Hunte reacted with the delight of someone opening a special Christmas present.

 FOUR YEARS ago, when the idea that Test cricket should be split into two divisions was gaining currency, there was no doubt which one the West Indies would be in.

The adjectives that littered Caribbean newspapers after the defeats by seven wickets (with 58 balls remaining) and 160 runs (when they could last only 31.1 overs and cobble together 132) accurately described the West Indies performances in the first two ODIs of the series that was yesterday secured 3-2 by Bangladesh.

With their categorical victories in all three formats over New Zealand and their rousing triumph in the subsequent World T20 championship, the West Indies might have swept into Bangladesh last week for two Tests, five ODIs and one T20 against the game’s weakest opponents whistling with optimism.

Some have been more contentious than others but the selection of no West Indies team, home or abroad, has ever met with the unanimous approval of media and fans.

By Tony cozier Ramnaresh Sarwan would do well to follow the example of Marlon Samuels.

There were uncanny similarities between the West Indies’ rousing victory in last Sunday’s World T20 final and that in the 2004 Champions Trophy, not least the players’ uninhibited celebrations afterwards and the impact on fans everywhere.

WITH one notable, and understandable, exception, the cricket world’s press yesterday welcomed West Indies’ victory over Sri Lanka in the ICC World T20 final in Colombo on Sunday.