The Golden Isles - A Story

[Chasjs]

That's annoying see, I think their should be more tour games and the game should even include some for home side in important series like happens in real life.

[Imager36]

2-1 up, 2 to play. I have a chance here:-



Gayle and Chanderpaul did the business with the bat, and leg-spinner Wallace finished off the Englishmen with 7-192 in two innings.

As a side note, they dropped Sherbourne and brought in Horton.

As a second side note, my reports are either really brief (like this) or about right. No idea why, just can't think of any more things to write about this one.

As a third side note, Garraway is injured, and Richardson gets the nod ahead of Pascal to replace him.

[Imager36]

Bloomin' hell... All down to the final test...



For the first time in the series, our bowlers couldn't control the English batsmen, and our batsmen crumbled under the pressure. Richardson and Sammy had bad first bowling innings, and only Gayle, Chanderpaul and Barath scored over 10 in our first innings, and that sparked a collapse of epic proportions after what was a decent start.

Cook and Strauss put on a great partnership before Strauss was out; this time Bell added more with Cook before they were both out and England had another collapse, but they had more runs on the board than us at the time.

Our batting again fails, with Flokes being top scorer, and when that happens, you know you're in trouble!

Again, another bloomin' tour match, my second against the MCC. After that last match, these lot will play to try and get back into form.

[Imager36]

Batting - Satisfactory
Bowling - Poor



Not really much to say about this... The rain delays stopped our inevitable win.

For the final test, the fully-recovered Garraway replaces the out-of-form McClean.

[Imager36]

A combination of poor bowling and disasterous batting led to what was a disappointing result. A 3-2 loss in such a close series.



The very first partnership in the match was the one that almost consigned us to our fate. 188 between Cook and Strauss, and they both looked utterly impenetrable.

Wallace took both, but our thoughts of having a first innings lead had already been reduced to hoping to stay in contention.

We couldn't muster that, either. Morton and Chanderpaul both fell early and no-one really looked like turning the odds in our favour. Late-order heroism from Bravo (77) and Flokes (29) looked like avoiding the follow-on was possible, but the tail crumbled and we finished 12 away from our first goal.

Again, Morton fell early before Chanderpaul and Gayle restored the innings with a partnership of 99 taking the score to 100 before Gayle was bowled by Anderson. Barath (33) and Sarwan (42) aided Chanderpaul to his 91 before he went caught behind off Anderson again.

Then Flokes (75) and Trev Garraway (46*) both recorded their highest test match scores in a partnership of 88, with Flokes showing promise in scoring over 100 in the match. He's still only 19, remember.

England reached their total pretty easily. Still, a good season for the golden isles so far, and good things to come! Squad for one-dayers vs. England and men of the series coming soon.

[Imager36]

West Indies Series Award Panel Awards

Best Batsman - Shiv Chanderpaul - Still making big runs, even though he's now about 79.

Best Bowler - Greg Wallace - The only bowler who made inroads all the way through the series.

Pinot Grigio Performance - (What?! It was either that or Magnum Match, which I'm far too poor to just be giving out every series ) - (The BBC reminds you that there are other varieties of white grape which can be used for wine) - Greg Wallace - For his 9-265 in the 1st match of the series.

The squad for the one-dayers against England (and one against Scotland) is the same as the test squad minus Brendan Nash, Nelon Pascal, Veersammy Permaul and Denesh Ramdin and with the inclusion of Mark Ridley, the 19-year-old seamer who has played 1 test with disappointing figures, but 1 test probably does not do him justice and he will be trained by specialists whilst on the tour.

[Imager36]

Team for the Scotland Match

R.Morton
I.Flokes (wk)
S.Chanderpaul (c)
A.Barath
D.Bravo
R.Sarwan
D.Sammy
K.McClean
M.Ridley
G.Wallace
A.Martin

This means the 4 players left out are Gayle (worst batsman in one-dayers this year so far), Powell (Lack of experience/form in international arena), Garraway (Very likely to come in for first proper one-dayer) and Richardson (not having a great season).

Flokes will open in this match, although I may try others in his place throughout the series.

[Imager36]

I may not have to bother to play others:-



All the bowlers did well except the young, talented Ridley, and he will make way for Garraway in the first match proper.

My only concern with the batting is that we didn't really take the game to Scotland, but we didn't need to, and so that was me not increasing the aggression!

The Ridley-Garraway swap will be the only one made.

[Imager36]

Didn't realise that there were T20s left to play. Oh how I hate playing them



Not much to say about this. 1 to go!

[Imager36]

Wow. Wasn't expecting that.



Martin bowled very well, perhaps pushing Wallace for the test place, might try both at the same time in Bangaladesh.

Barath and Sarwan were superious on the batting front.

[Imager36]

I'm not prepared to let this die now, so let's press on with the One Day Internationals. I very much expect to lose this series, England have a massive pool of players and ODIs still aren't my best form of the game.



Had an early batting collapse, and at 53-4 Chanderpaul and Sarwan really had to slow down, so slow that we weren't all out and didn't get the kind of score that would have been needed. I find myself with good enough bowling but a batsman short, so I'm yearning for a good all-rounder in one-dayers.

Not much the bowlers could do, although watching Strauss take 100 rather easily was almost soul destroying.

[Chasjs]

Keep it up

[goldfan]

Keep mentally tough Imager!!

[Imager36]

I'm letting you all down



We won the toss and fielded first, and I was relatively happy with restricting England to 239 all out. McClean was too explosive (not economical enough) and most of the other bowlers decided to counter-act that by being too economical and not explosive enough.

Thinking I could get 240 (never think things like that), I started to bat...

Flokes' early 22 showed promise, but he has shown that pretty much throughout his career so far without the best results. He is only 19, however, and I won't lose faith with him until anyone better comes along!

Morton fell early (again) and Chanderpaul also fell for only 10, which is surprising for him. After these 3 were out, there was a mini-rebuilding period where Barath and Bravo followed by Barath and Sarwan put on partnerships which looked promising because I'm starting to forget what promise feels like.

McClean and Garraway put up a small amount of resistance, but it was all over by this point.

Ah well. 2 down, 3 to play.

Darren Bravo hasn't done anything wrong, and remains a big part of my plans, but a change had to be made and it's him who misses out. Chris Gayle comes in to open, with Flokes dropping to six.

[Chasjs]

Your not... England are a good side... I'm letting everyone down losing to friking Banglafrikingdesh!!!