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We’ve got a Sachin Tendulkar post saved as a draft, but let’s look elsewhere today. Let’s look at the West Indies captain, Darren Sammy, who’s currently having a ‘mare.
We rather like Sammy. Not just because his initials make him DJ Sammy, not just because he purveys genuine medium-pace and not just because he’s forever so ready to smile you wonder whether he’s overmedicated. We also happen to think that he’s a reasonably decent cricketer.
He’s not a match-winning bowler and he’s not a batsman you’d expect more than 50 from, but he’s more than capable of bowling tight overs and hitting handy runs down the order. The problem is that this is pretty much all you can expect from him, so when he’s out of form, there aren’t many great memories to refer to when making a case for his retention.
In the Windies, many people have been baying for him to be dropped ever since he was made captain. We see their point, but at the same time the team’s often been unstable enough that a decent captain would be worth his place even if all he could do were field. It’s not like Sammy’s keeping a Michael Holding out of the side, after all.
But whoever he’s keeping out of the side may just get a game when the Windies play their next Test. Having been given the boot from the one-day captaincy, Sammy’s been under increasing pressure in the longest format. He says he thrives on criticism, which should mean he’s at his best right now.
He is not at his best.
In the first Test, he admitted leading by example by playing a stupid, impatient, entirely inappropriate shot. He said he had to learn. In the first innings of this Test, he gloved the first delivery he faced, concluded that he now had his eye in and absolutely skied the second. Then, when India came to bat, in a classic case of trying to claw yourself back into credit through an ill-judged attempt to ‘take responsibility’ he opened the bowling and was promptly spanked.
Darren Sammy’s job is to play second fiddle. In attempting to play the lead violin part, he’s making himself redundant in more ways than one.
Pop quiz, hot shots.
Who are the two players to have previously scored twin centuries on Test debut?
No Googling.
Fine, don’t play. I’ll play with myself.
It was Lawrence Rowe and Yasir Hameed.
And now Rohit Sharma.
I hate you all.
You realise that Rohit Sharma’s second Test hundred wasn’t scored on his debut, right?
I do now.
I’m an idiot.
Now finally not so great person dropping time will came But We expecting good support for younger with their experience. This Type of not so great person very high volume coming from west indies
The arbitrary upper case is a nice touch. Chapeau.
Merci from Rakesh Kumar Jha
Who would be the worst nightwatchman to come in with more than 20 minutes of play left in the day?
Tino Best would surely be up there…
dunno. but Tino Best for sure
Get on with it! Some of us are bursting at the seams with fine words about Tendulkar. In fact, I can’t wait no more. Here is a poem (admittedly it’s an old poem I wrote for another sporting hero of mine, but with a small bit of editing I reckon it still works fine).
Lines on the Retirement of a Batting Hero
You squat at the crease as you execute
Your skillsets with savage intention
Your words are not found in a dictionary
But are mostly your own invention
Your Way is a thing of magnificence
Your chest defies any explainment
Your place is secure for ever
In the annals of high cricketainment
So farewell then, my lost unmet friend,
Our hearts are downcast and lead-laden
No more will those flat tracks be bullied
The greatest, the best – Matthew Tendulkar
It’s nice to run a website where you can write about Darren Sammy when everyone else is writing about Sachin Tendulkar and someone will leave a poem about Matthew Hayden by way of comment on that.
Bert’s poemifications have inspired me to the following:
There once was a cricketer called Sammy
Whose wickets and runs were a bit jammy
As Test Captain he’s past it
He surely won’t last it
Except in formats pyjammy
No?
There once was a Hayden named Matt
Who relished a pitch that was flat
He liked drinking in bars
He talked out his arse
He was quite an insufferable fellow
Sammy, DJ has his knockers
“These decisions you make are all shockers!”
And the Windies take a bashing,
Foiled as always by Sachin,
I think DJ’ll be clearing his lockers.
Beside the (Backward) Point–A Haiku:
weeping ’round the ground
darren sammy’s final tour
one last catch taken
Sammy is the only one who makes those dysfunctional idiots into a team. If he goes they aren’t going to win anything for a long time*.
* discounting games against Bangladesh or Zimbabwe
doubt if they will beat Bangladesh ..
{tt} just look at that headline. DJS is at it again.
does this mean that the windies will actually do things differently next time? “fuz it duk”
It’s Sammy, rather than Gayle or Chanderpaul, who is the zeitgeist of the modern West Indies team. Gayle oozes lazy talent and Chanderpaul blazes with determination. But both are actually pretty good. The West Indies, by and large, is not good.
They can often pick bowlers who are faster than Sammy, but not many who can actually bowl 6 balls at the same place in a row. If that’s not a crucial element of bowling, then how else could players like Ashley Giles even exist.
And their idea of a good top order player is a youngster who can grind out a turgid century against poor bowling on a perfect batting wicket. Let’s not even get into the logic by which Sammy sneaks into a Test match middle order.
But somehow he does and when you look at the West Indies, it’s not even that weird. Darren Sammy is perhaps the most complete mediocre player of his generation. The failing of the West Indies is that they have access to far too many players who fall short of such a measure.