West Indies prepares for ODI Match

BY: KAYLA KARIM 

After coming off of a win in the earlier Test Series against England at the end of January, West Indies is set to prepare for their upcoming ODI match on Wednesday, February 20^th, 2019. The England tour of West Indies will continue at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados.

West Indies are looking to continue to show the cricket world that they are more than just a previous empire. Ahmer Naqvi from ESPNcricrinfo reports that for about a decade, West Indies have been at the very outer limits of the game’s most cutting edge format.  Naqvi also mentions that, despite the unsatisfying decline of West Indies cricket, players are more often than not blamed first.

Over time, they have created two very similar and extraordinary players, in Darren Sammy and Jason Holder.

Darren Sammy was vice-captain in the Bangladesh tour of the West Indies in 2009. He was then appointed captain, however, it didn’t sit well with many. Naqvi says “The men he replaced had at least carried the swag and strut of the Caribbean ideal”, whereas Sammy was a “yes man” who got lucky and secured a job he didn’t deserve. Fast forward to six years later, Sammy was adored by the cricket world after winning his second world title.

Jason Holder’s story is similar. Although he was inexperienced like Sammy, he is significantly younger – even becoming the second youngest captain in West Indie’s history in Tests. After being thrown into a position that he probably wasn’t completely prepared for, Holder ended up becoming a better version of Sammy’s “dignified trier” says Naqvi. He was a more talented cricketer and was able to assert his skills better despite having to deal with the similar lack of a full-strength squad. His ODI teams have struggled but the Test side has started to reveal its identity. Holder’s first Test win was against Pakistan in Sharjan and since then, his team has a record better than that of any Asian side other than India.

As the team moves in the direction of young leaders and hoping to rebuild their own identity, both of the cricketers will look to continue their remarkable story.  The recent win against England and the appointment of the two has helped to ease the conversation of controversy and chaos surrounding both players. Naqvi analyzes the situation and comes to the conclusion that “it is time that we come to see this decade as a completely different chapter in West Indies’ history, which for better or worse has moved past the shadow of the golden age and lives in its own contradictions and achievements”.

He continues to share, “The tales of Sammy and Holder are about a new form of defiance and dignity – which exist in the face of a new set of challenges to do not only with the domestic administration but the rapidly changing economic reality of the sport itself”. He concludes with, supporters and cricket watchers should learn to think of West Indies and remove the idea of replicating the past.

West Indies will face England in four ODI’s from February 20^th until the 27^th 2019.