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  • "I think their minds were already on the plane home. I am just not sure they were here to play today."
    Jamie Siddons on Bangladesh's performance in the last league match of the Asia Cup

    Jul 4, 2008

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    Bravo to them all

    By Will last year, at the end of December Leave a comment on this post

    I’d added Sky Sports last night in preparation for a mammoth day in front of the box with a bottle of anything, watching what I hoped would be an historic win for West Indies, only to realise I had family duties in Dorset of all places. Not a chore, but still - no mobile reception and no way of following the cricket.

    So I was relieved to see West Indies have beaten South Africa so comprehensively - bloody brilliant news and a fine achievement. Excluding their wins over Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, today’s win was their first victory overseas since beating England in 2000 at Edgbaston (remember that bitch of a pitch?). Looking back to that game, the Almanack says:

    West Indies, having failed to win a Test outside the Caribbean since February 1997 - since when they had suffered ten consecutive overseas defeats - won this opening match by an innings inside three days, just as they had on their previous visit here in 1995. It was the 1,500th Test to be played.

    All of this puts into perspective just how massive today’s feat is, and also what an impact Chris Gayle has on that motley bunch. South Africa played poorly (from what little I saw and read) - particularly batting in their first innings - but West Indies outplayed them in most sessions. We’ve seen them win occasional sessions, even whole days, but never consistently.

    Today is a triumph; roll on the second Test. Oh, and this was Dwayne Bravo’s first win in 24 Tests…

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    2 Responses to “Bravo to them all”

  • Scott wrote:
    December 30th, 2007 at 1.33 am

    I saw large patches of this game, unfortunately for reasons best known to themselves, Foxtel declined to show the fourth day’s play.

    But this was a very solid West Indies performance. The long suffering supporters of West Indies cricket will take heart from this.

    Be interesting to see how the two teams respond to it though.

  • William wrote:
    December 30th, 2007 at 3.06 am

    Good news for the West Indies and good news for cricket - the more teams competing at the same level, the better. WI have an excellent chance to go ahead and win the series now - no mean feat, given that South Africa are ‘officially’ the second best team in the world at the moment, and playing at home to boot.

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