West Indies

A second Shiv

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< 1 minute read

There will only ever be one Shiv - mankind simply can't spare sufficient elbows for a second

For all that cricket is a team game, West Indies are only one Shiv away from being literally unbeatable. England basically took wickets at one end only throughout this match and Marlon Samuels gave an indication what would happen were a second Shivnarine Chanderpaul to come to the crease.

In that situation, West Indies would always have something to bowl at (eventually) and their bowling really isn’t that bad. There’s actually a case for saying they’d have this match firmly under control if they’d won the toss.

However, they didn’t win the toss and so they find themselves defending 191. We think they should have played a spinner. Particularly against England. You should always play a spinner. Particularly against England.

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Default ThumbnailShiv hits some more hundreds Default ThumbnailSomeone’s challenged Shiv to a crease occupation contest Default ThumbnailIt’s Shiv and he’s scoring a hundred Default ThumbnailWest Indies are better than Pakistan

24 comments

  1. One of the delights of test cricket is the couple of hours before the start of play each day, in which people can gather at work to discuss what will or won’t happen. It’s not like other sports, in that two hours before kick-off you have no data to go on (the match not having started), and at half-time there isn’t long enough to distil your thoughts properly. For test cricket fans, this is the window of opportunity for pontificating, for saying with confidence exactly what will happen, and for justifying it with irrefutable logic backed up with decades of acquired wisdom.

    England will win today, because they are only one-and-a-half wickets down, having lost only the 8th and 11th best batsmen in the team (we don’t know where Bairstow sits yet). So despite what it says on the scorecard, ALL of the best English batting remains available. What happened last night was but a scratch, barely a dent, hardly noticeable in the scheme of things. And 190 is a much easier chase than 130, because the batsmen know that to get it they have to bat as if it were a test match, instead of being confused that a couple of hefty blows will do the trick. Also, Fidel Edwards is a new-ball bowler who struggles to bowl more than five overs at a time, and Roach is like that as well probably.

  2. Samuels certainly looks like a good player. His greatest strength is the fact that he has two first names.

    1. Same can be said of half the team (Fidel Edwards, Darren Sammy,and Shannon Gabriel) although unlike Edwards the others seem to have other strengths which let them make an impact on the game. I can’t understand why Sammy is persisting with Edwards wasting the new ball when he would do a better job himself in these conditions.

    2. We’d allow the plurals as surnames (Edwards and Samuels).

      We also reckon Shannon’s more of a surname. Gabriel Shannon’s a perfectly acceptable name.

    5. Edwards is a patronymic surname, meaning son of (belonging to) Edward. In this way, Fidel’s son would presumably be called Fidels, or maybe Fidelson, which would suggest the first name “Andtheband”.

      Glad to help.

    7. I was watching a Danish/Swedish drama last night with bad English subtitles.
      At one point a man introduced himself by saying “My name is Martin.”
      The woman he was meeting replied with: “And beyond?”
      Then he told her his surname.

    8. @ Pete – er, yes.

      @ Sam – Ah, those Danish/Swedish “dramas” with bad subtitles. I think we’ve all seen a few of those.

  3. I see that we’re working hard at making a balls of it, despite the irrefutable logic of what I said before.

  4. I see Ian Bell has more than double the average of any other England batsman so far this series. And people wanted to drop him, tsk!

  5. It would be great to see Chris Gayle come back into the team and indeed Sarwan….just can’t see it happening though.

    1. Sarwan’s doing nicely where he is, thank-you very much. You leave him right there.

  6. There is no logic to West Indian names (in the first name and surname department), none whatsoever.

    The skipper, Darren Sammy, being in the team and skipper precisely because he is a prime example of the “two first names” genre.

    Wayne Daniel was one of the very best, as was Malcolm Marshall. Kenny Benjamin was another. Andy Roberts was one of those plural guys.

    I could go on, indeed I most certainly have gone on.

    2. The Guardian OBO was running an alternate version of this game the other day – your mother’s maiden name and the last seaside resort you visited.

      That would give me Murray Littlehampton.

    3. Marcus Ninh Van Bay.

      Oh dear, that sounds like a drag artiste at Madame JoJo’s.

    6. Brown Apollo Bay
      although if you allow inland vacation spots it would be
      Brown Daylesford
      Either way for me anything involving mothers maiden names and west indies cricket is going to come out a little… wrong.

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