St John’s Antigua – Predicting ‘clear favourites’ in regional cricket is becoming increasingly perilous said President of the West Indies Cricket Board, Dr. Julian Hunte as he congratulated Barbados and Leeward Islands for their shared triumph in the recently concluded WICB Regional 50 Over Tournament.
“Congratulations to both Barbados and Leeward Islands for producing what turned out to be a phenomenal and historic result in the final,” Dr. Hunte said.
“The performances of both teams throughout the tournament were worthy of them being finalists and the WICB is immensely proud of the two teams for making what was a low scoring final into a match which ended in high drama,” Dr Hunte noted.
Barbados and surprise finalists Leeward Islands played to a tie in a low scoring match at Sabina Park on Sunday.
“Barbados played with a clinical efficiency as they made their way to the final while the Leeward Islands displayed an unyielding tenacity from their opening match to the final ball of the Tournament,” Dr Hunte said.
“I must observe that with the Leeward Islands making it to the finals and showcasing that they are a team on the move forward, to predict that one team or another is a clear favourite in regional cricket is becoming more and more difficult,” Dr Hunte said.
“In recent years we have had Trinidad and Guyana winning T20 titles, Jamaica winning 4 day titles, Barbados making two consecutive finals and Windward Islands playing consistently competitive cricket and pulling off an increasing number of victories against some of the traditionally more established teams,” Dr Hunte observed.
“These are good and positive signs for the future even as the WICB recognizes that there is much more work to be done in continuing to improve the standard of regional cricket,” Dr Hunte said.
“And it is in this regard that we are most pleased to have the involvement of the two top teams from the ECB’s Friends Provident t20 in the Caribbean T20 along with the English Lions for our Regional 4 Day Tournament in 2011,” Dr Hunte pointed out.
“Finally, on behalf of the Board I would like to thank the Jamaica Cricket Association for hosting the Tournament which they delivered in a usually competent manner despite many challenges from the weather,” Dr Hunte said.
@just facts:
Hunte’s comments are pure spin on a horrible situation. No matter how much make-up you put on a pig to make it look pretty, it is still a pig.
Mr Hunt’s comments are not that illogical. I mean if you have new teams winning then it may indicate that something positive is happening. But if the scores are below expectations and the cricket is substandard then we may be in problems. On top of that is where are the West Indies players coming from. Are they from the winning teams or the losing teams.
Generally though I think that West Indies cricket is not coming around. Both players and administration have fair share of the blame to carry. Though I think that too many poor selection and captaincy decisions of the past are still haunting us.
Mr Hunt’s commence confirms why Windies cricket is in such a mess and will remain as long as we have our president making such a redicus statement. How could our two top teams score 139 in a final and for Mr. President to see it as a positive? It is very sad that we cannot get good cricketers in the caribbean and contrary to Mr. Hunt, it is a very bad sign. Mr. Hunt, if all teams were playing good cricket and a clear favorite was unpredictable then we would see it as a step in the right decision. But when you have teams that were good enough to beat test teams in the past and now they cannot compete against Leward and Winward Is,teams that have gotten weaker than in the past, as president I think you should be very embarrased if your goal is to bring back cricket somewhere close to the Glory Day’s. I think you and the entire Board need to resign and let people like Viv, LLoyd, Lara and others run our cricket in other for us to bounce backl.
Is this guy Julien Hunt for real? How can this guy take a positive out of a score of 139 runs by BOTH teams. This was a championship game for crying out loud.
All I see are two crapy teams which is symptomatic of crapy cricketers in the region.