CWC19| MATCH REPORT & HIGHLIGHTS – POORAN’S MAIDEN HUNDRED AGAINST SL

DURHAM, England – A counter-attacking, maiden One-day International hundred from Nicholas Pooran failed to top a first ODI hundred for Avishka Fernando, as West Indies stumbled to a 23-run defeat in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 England & Wales.

Chasing 339 for victory, the West Indies looked on the brink of a heavy defeat when they slipped to 145 for five in the 29th over of their penultimate match in the tournament at the Riverside Stadium before the left-handed Pooran led a recovery with the lower order, as the Caribbean side finished on 315 for nine from their allocation of 50 overs.

Pooran makes century.jpgPooran smashed 11 fours and four sixes to top all scorers in the contest with 118 off 103 balls before he was dismissed in the 48th over, caught behind off Angelo Mathews, bowling in an ODI for the first time since December 2017, and carried the West Indies’ chances of victory with him back to the pavilion.

Pooran bats against SL.jpgThe 23-year-old Pooran dominated a 54-run, sixth-wicket stand with Carlos Brathwaite before sharing 83 for the seventh-wicket with Fabian Allen to revive the West Indies’ flagging chances in the second half of the game which was watched by Barbados-born singing sensation, Rihanna.

Rihanna at WC.jpgBrathwaite made just eight from 15 balls before he was run out in the 35th over and the same fate befell Allen 10 overs later, after he made a career-best 51 from 32 balls.

Earlier, West Indies struggled to make an impact with the new ball after they chose to field and the Sri Lankan top order – led by Fernando with a run-a-ball 104 – laid the foundation for their side’s highest total in the tournament of 338 for six off 50 overs.

Both Sri Lanka and West Indies are out of contention for semi-final spots.

WI and SL.jpgWest Indies face Afghanistan in their final match of the tournament on Thursday at Headingley in Leeds.

Source: CWI Media

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WI LOSE TO INDIA | CWC19 MATCH REPORT & HIGHLIGHTS

MANCHESTER, England – West Indies failed to capitalise on a disciplined bowling performance led by Kemar Roach and were let down by their batting again when they stumbled to a 125-run defeat to India in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 England & Wales.

Chasing 269 for victory, the West Indies were bowled out for 143 in the 35th over of their seventh match in tournament at Old Trafford.

Sunil Ambris, playing his first match of the tournament after flying in two days ago to replace Andre Russell, topscored with 31 and left-handed Nicholas Pooran made 28, but they were the only two of the three top-order batsmen to reach double figures and the only ones overall to pass 20.

The Caribbean side’s batting was undermined by Mohammed Shami, who bowled brilliantly to finish with 4-16 from 6.2 overs, fellow pacer Jasprit Bumrah and leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal picked up two wickets apiece.

The #MenInMaroon now have just one win in seven matches with contests remaining against Sri Lanka on Monday at the Riverside Stadium and Afghanistan on Thursday at Headingley, and with no chance of reaching the semi-finals.

West Indies slumped to 16 for two in the seventh over after Chris Gayle and Shai Hope fell cheaply, but Ambris and Pooran put on a valuable 55 for the third wicket.

The West Indies were just beginning to claw their way back into the match, when they lost both batsmen in the space of 15 balls with just nine runs added.

With this partnership broken, there was little defiance or resistance from the rest of the batting, as the last eight wickets fell for 72 in the space of 99 balls.

Earlier, Roach was outstanding with the ball, grabbing 3-36 from his allotted 10 overs, as India made 268 for seven off their allotted 50 overs, after choosing to bat, with their captain Virat Kohli hitting the top score of 72 to earn the Player-of-the-Match and former skipper M.S. Dhoni getting an unbeaten 56.

West Indies captain Jason Holder and left-arm pacer Sheldon Cottrell took two wickets each, as India rallied back from 180 for five in the 39th over.

 

Source: CMC/CWI Media

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GAYLE’S ODI CAREER – WILL HE SURPASS LARA?

The West Indies are up against it in their battle to qualify for the semi-finals, but there is a small cause for celebration for Jason Holder’s side – and for one of their number in particular. On Thursday, against India, Christopher Henry Gayle has the chance to become the West Indies’ highest ever ODI run-scorer.

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Brathwaite leads as West Indies get VIP tour of Manchester United

MANCHESTER, England – Members of the West Indies team took a break from their hectic schedule to pay a visit to one of sport’s most iconic venues. Several players, member of the support staff along with family and friends were hosted to a VIP tour of Old Trafford football stadium – the home of Manchester United. West Indies are in Manchester for 11 days as the played ICC Cricket World Cup matches against New Zealand – last Saturday, and India – on Thursday.

C. Brathwaite at Old Trafford.jpgThey made the short journey over from the historic cricket venue to the Theatre of Dreams, and saw close up the majesty of the sporting arena. The tour included a trip into the players dressing room – which has hosted many legends of English and international football. They also heard about the history of the club, the legacy of the great manager Sir Alex Ferguson and received replica playing jerseys.

Allrounder Carlos Brathwaite who is a Man U supporter said:

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Andre Russell has knee surgery in Manchester

MANCHESTER, England – West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell successfully underwent surgery to address the injury to his left knee, which earlier this week ruled him out of the ICC Cricket World Cup. The 31-year-old had the procedure at a local facility and will return to Jamaica to continue his rehabilitation.

Russell in recovery 1.jpg

Russell played four of West Indies’ six matches in the World Cup before being replaced by Sunil Ambris, who joined the team on Tuesday. Russell had a major impact in the West Indies win over Pakistan, where he took two wickets for four runs in a hostile three-over spell at Trent Bridge. Overall he ended with just five wickets from 19 overs. He scored 36 runs from three innings.

Russell makes catch off BANG.jpg

 

Source: CMC /CWI Media

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TICKETS NOW ON SALE FOR INDIA TOUR OF THE WEST INDIES

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua – Tickets for the India Tour of the West Indies 2019 – sponsored by MyTeam11 and co-powered by Skoda – will go on sale to the public from midnight tonight (East Caribbean Time), coinciding with 40 days to go until the start of the action between the two teams.

Fans can get their tickets to all eight matches for the Tour, including the two MyTeam11 Tests which jump start the two teams’ participation in the ICC World Test Championship and two MyTeam11 Twenty20 Internationals in the United States, via the “Buy Tickets” button on the West Indies website, www.windiescricket.com.

Local box office sales start approximately two weeks in advance of each leg of the Tour with the list of opening dates being:

India Tour to the Caribbean 2019 schedule.jpg

“West Indies fans across the region have a wonderful opportunity to come out and get behind this talented, exciting West Indies side. The fans can really make the difference in creating the carnival atmosphere that the players love and which fans all over the world love watching on TV. We’re giving fans affordable tickets and promotional discounted ticket bundles. And with the start of the World Test Championship, there’s added competition in every form of the game,” said CWI Commercial Director, Dominic Warne.

“When you pitch everyone’s favourite team, the West Indies, against the world’s most supported team in India and the two most passionate sets of cricket fans, it’s going to be a wonderful MyTeam11 Series across all 3 formats of international cricket, in an action packed month of cricket. Our fans can become the extra man and give our promising teams that extra boost when they step on to the field,” said Warne.

Tickets for children aged 12 and under are free with the purchase of an adult ticket for all matches. Senior citizens – aged 60-plus – on presentation of a form of national photo identification at local box offices are also eligible for free tickets while stocks last for all matches, except the two MyTeam11 Twenty20 Internationals in the United States.

To give fans extra encouragement to get behind the start of the West Indies World Test Championship journey, a special season ticket is available for either of the Test matches where the full 5 days of cricket have been discounted to the equivalent price of just three and a half days.

Source: CMC/CWI Media

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Sunil Ambris to replace Andre Russell in CWC19 West Indies squad

MANCHESTER, England – The International Cricket Council has confirmed that the Event Technical Committee of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 has approved Sunil Ambris as a replacement player for Andre Russell in the West Indies squad for the remainder of the tournament.

All-rounder Russell has been ruled out of further participation in the event due to an injury to his left knee. Ambris the 26-year-old top-order batsman and wicket-keeper from St Vincent, has played six Tests and six ODIs for the West Indies.

Sunil Ambris.jpgHe was a member of the squad which recently played in the Tri Nation Series in Ireland where he made his maiden international century. During that tournament he had scores of 38, 148, 23 and 69 not out.

The West Indies are presently in Manchester where they are preparing for the next ICC Cricket World Cup match against India on Thursday at Old Trafford.

First ball is 10:30am (5:30am Eastern Caribbean Time/4:30am Jamaica Time). The other two matches remaining in the first round are against Sri Lanka in Durham on Monday, July 1 and against Afghanistan at Headingley, on Thursday, July 4.

World Cup Schedule.jpgThe replacement of a player requires the approval of the Event Technical Committee before the replacement player can be officially added to the squad.

The Event Technical Committee of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 consists of Geoff Allardice (ICC, ETC chairman), Campbell Jamieson (ICC representative), Steve Elworthy (CWC representative), Alan Fordham (host representative), Harsha Bhogle and Kumar Sangakkara (both independent representatives).

FULL SQUAD (with shirt numbers)

Jason Holder (Captain) – 8

Chris Gayle (Vice Captain) – 45

Fabian Allen – 97

Sunil Ambris – 99

Carlos Brathwaite – 26

Darren Bravo – 46

Sheldon Cottrell – 19

Shannon Gabriel – 85

Shimron Hetmyer – 2

Shai Hope – 4

Evin Lewis – 17

Ashley Nurse – 5

Nicholas Pooran – 29

Kemar Roach – 24

Oshane Thomas – 42

RESULTS

  • Friday, May 31: vs Pakistan at Trent Bridge, Nottingham

West Indies won by 7 wickets; Details: https://bit.ly/31emdPM

  • Thursday, June 6: vs Australia at Trent Bridge, Nottingham

Australia won by 15 runs; Details: https://bit.ly/2QSdU7v

  • Monday, June 10: vs South Africa at Hampshire Bowl, Southampton

No result due to rain; Details: https://bit.ly/2I5ZA8w

  • Friday, June 14: vs England at Hampshire Bowl, Southampton

England won by 8 wickets; Details: https://bit.ly/2KjbRsx

  • Monday, June 17: vs Bangladesh at the County Ground, Taunton

Bangladesh won by 7 wickets; Details: https://bit.ly/2XRv7Ap

  • Saturday, June 22: vs New Zealand at Old Trafford, Manchester

New Zealand won by 5 runs; Details: https://bit.ly/2ZDHAbx

 

 

Source: CMC/CWI Media

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A LOOK BACK ON BRATHWAITE’S TON AGAINST NEW ZEALAND | CWC19

Don’t let anyone convince you that history only remembers the winners. Holland in 1974. New Zealand in 2015. We remember those that made us feel things, those that defined moments and tournaments with performances that will never fall into line with others.

Carlos Brathwaite – WI will remember the name.

GettyImages-1157627679.jpgCarlos Brathwaite hit five sixes yesterday – brutal, totemic sixes. 30 iconic runs from all out assaults on the New Zealand attack. Five shots. Just short of six.

Brathwaite hit 25 runs off Matt Henry, in the 48th over of the game: 25% of his total runs in five minutes and 50 seconds of absolute, utter chaos. It brought West Indies’ prospects up from a 3% chance to a 45% chance, from a shot in the dark to within touching distance. Five minutes, fifty seconds. Just short of six.

Carlos Brathwaite hit Jimmy Neesham to long-on. A muscular parabola, the ball arced high into the Manchester sky, white on black in the night, arcing towards the fielder unfortunately unable to make a six.

chart - 2019-06-22T224037.827.pngWhen Brathwaite came to the crease, West Indies were 142-4. They were almost exactly halfway to their target, but it felt an awful lot further away than that. In the overs that followed, they lost Chris Gayle, Ashley Nurse and Evin Lewis.
When Lewis fell, their chances with WinViz dropped to 1%.

Unlike most team sports, cricket is binary. Ties go down in history, and you can count them on your hand. In white ball cricket, you win or you lose. You’re up, or you’re down. You’re dead, or you’re alive.

Brathwaite knows that if you’re still stood at the crease, you still have a chance. That’s why, when all others around him were falling, he stood, and let the action happen. He let the game come to him. As the wickets fell, and the game began to flat-line, Brathwaite just hung. He put no pressure on himself to hit out from the start, absolving himself of blame with easy talk of aggression or counter-attacks. He calmly, authoritatively, took the burden of the whole game, the whole campaign, on his broad Bajan shoulders, and waited.

Brathwaite attacked only 18 of the first 60 deliveries he faced in Manchester yesterday. He gave himself the option to sit, to assess the situation, to gather information about the pitch and the bowlers, knowing he had firepower to come. He knew that, for all the runs required and all the balls remaining, this was essentially in hand.

chart - 2019-06-23T004841.449.pngFrom the moment he arrived at the crease, another 137 runs came from the bats of the West Indian side; 101 came from Brathwaite’s.

He bided his time, waited; stealing from over to over, getting closer to the desired target in tiny increments, nothing more. He knew the end could be emphatic, he’s always had it in him.

chart - 2019-06-22T224303.429.pngAfter those first 60 deliveries, he attacked 18 of the next 22. He made a break for it, and it was sustained. The 36 attacking shots Brathwaite played was the most he’s ever played in an ODI innings. It was twice as many as he’s ever played before in a single match.

chart - 2019-06-23T005011.939.pngBut he picked his deliveries. This wasn’t indiscriminate slogging, in the slightest. Brathwaite knows his strengths and weaknesses all too well, and approached this task appropriately.

chart - 2019-06-22T232143.872.pngFew cricketers in the world are as intelligent in terms of using their skills as efficiently. His scoring yesterday was clinical, his attacking strokes destructive, but they came against full pitched bowling.

chart - 2019-06-22T225758.218.pngTerrifyingly, out of nowhere, Williamson suddenly clocked what was going on. He tuned into the destruction, and knew what he had to do to get his side over the line.

The last eight balls Brathwaite faced were all short. New Zealand had realised as a collective what was happening. Anything in the slot, or near it, was going the distance, but there was more causing Brathwaite issues. This was their in, their last chance to save face.

Ferguson, the short ball specialist – no Black Caps seamers has sent down more bouncers in this World Cup – had bowled out. So Williamson turned to Neesham, a man always willing to do a job, and from what we can tell from the sidelines, told him to bowl short every ball.

chart - 2019-06-22T230716.454.pngHe was dismissed by a short ball. The only type of bowling he never got hold of. Williamson had sussed him, just in time.

Brathwaite was left, on his own, on the floor in a moment that called to mind those other great valiant defeats. Lee in 2005, particularly, was at the forefront, the sense of a player so close to snatching unlikely victory, denied it at the last minute. This was a man who had walked all the way up to the mirror, the emphatic binary of win and lose, and fallen short with his nose touching glass.

No other innings this World Cup has had a higher impact on their side, in any given game. No other individual can walk back into the dressing room, look their teammates in the eye, and say that they did more.

chart - 2019-06-22T222808.204.pngIt’s frustrating, but we can’t talk about this innings, without talking about that innings. Kolkata, April 3rd, 2016. Brathwaite does what we all know he did, hitting four consecutive sixes off Ben Stokes in the most remarkable end to a cricket match ever seen. We remember the way it all unfolded, the thrill, the shock, the name. The game was England’s, and then it was gone.

Briefly, on Friday night, Stokes saw his own shot at redemption, his own opportunity to wrestle a victory out of the jaws of defeat with his hands only. It slipped away. Mark Wood was unable to play his part with the bat, and Stokes’ latest redemptive shot was struck out. It could be his last. These moments come along ever so rarely.

That’s the beauty of days like yesterday. It’s not in the tumult of the back and forth, the fortunes of two sides thrown from side to side, sparing only one. It’s that performances like Brathwaite’s are so rare, and for one man to produce two in a lifetime – no, in three years – is nothing short of astonishing.

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CWC19 MATCH REPORT & HIGHLIGHTS | BRATHWAITE SLAMS 101 IN AGONISING DEFEAT FOR WI

MANCHESTER, England – Carlos Brathwaite gave 101 reasons to once again remember his name, but narrowly failed to usher West Indies over the finish line, as they suffered a heart-breaking, five-run loss to New Zealand in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 England & Wales.

GettyImages-1157627464.jpgChasing 292 for victory at Old Trafford in their sixth match of the tournament, the West Indies were on the ropes at 167 for seven in the 27th over before Brathwaite followed up scintillating batting from Chris Gayle and Shimron Hetmyer with a sensational maiden One-day International hundred to make the Caribbean side believe again.

View the Match Highlights below:

West Indies v New Zealand Match Highlights| CWC19

Crucially, the tall, rugged all-rounder anchored the bottom half of the batting with an innings that included nine fours and five sixes from 82 balls and put on 47 for the eighth wicket with Kemar Roach, a further 34 for the ninth wicket with Sheldon Cottrell and 41 for the final wicket with Oshane Thomas.

The pivotal moment in the closing stages came, when Brathwaite slammed 25 from the 48th over from Matt Henry – including three sixes – which left West Indies with just eight to get from the last two overs.

Brathwaite scrambled just two runs off the fourth delivery of the penultimate over from Jimmy Neesham to reach his landmark.

GettyImages-1157627679.jpgWith the West Indies needing six with seven balls remaining, he connected with a short, rising ball from Jimmy Neesham and tried to clear the long-on boundary, only to watch in horror, as innings destroyer Trent Boult deftly navigated the boundary rope to haul in the match-winning catch. Two metres higher and it would have been victory.

The result meant it was the fourth straight loss for #MenInMaroon, keeping them on three points, dropping them down to seventh in the tournament standings, and virtually ruling them out of a place in the Final Four.

GettyImages-1157626865.jpgGayle and Hetmyer had provided the early entertainment in the chase and helped the West Indies recover from a shaky start that saw Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran dismissed cheaply to leave the side wobbling on 20 for two in the seventh over.

In typical fashion, Gayle, the self-acclaimed “Universe Boss”, slammed eight fours and six sixes in 87 from 84 balls and shared 122 for the third wicket with fellow left-hander Hetmyer, whose 54 from 45 balls, helped to get the West Indies chase back on track.

Five wickets for 22 in the space of 29 balls – Gayle, Hetmyer, as well as captain Jason Holder, Ashley Nurse and Evin Lewis for nought, one and nought respectively – appeared to have derailed the Caribbean side’s chances to even get close, as left-arm pacer Trent Boult with 4-30 and Lockie Fergusson with 3-59 from their allotted 10 overs apiece ripped the heart out of the batting.

But Brathwaite put the side on his broad shoulders and dragged them to within reach only to fall short with six balls remaining.

Earlier, Sheldon Cottrell grabbed 4-56 from 10 overs and Brathwaite took 2-58 from six overs, as New Zealand reached 291 for eight from their allocation of 50 overs, after they were put in to bat.

GettyImages-1157557192.jpgCottrell removed openers Martin Guptill and Colin Munro in the first over of the match, but he and the rest of the bowling failed to make inroads into the New Zealanders’ batting, as their opponents’ two most decorated batsmen, captain Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor breathed life into their side’s innings.

Williamson hit 148, his second straight hundred of the tournament, and Taylor supported with 69 in a third-wicket stand of 160 that was the rock upon which the Black Caps built their total.

West Indies face India in their next match on Thursday at the same venue.

 

Source:  CMC / CWI Media

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Russell tells Windies fans “stay with us”

Andre Russell showed what he’s made of in the opening Cricket World Cup match against Pakistan – and that was with the ball. The inspirational allrounder was picked more for his sensational batting than his swift bowling, but he stunned the Pakistanis with some sizzling short stuff which led to their batting collapse.

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