Twenty20 World Cup 2009: West Indies Squad

West Indies squad for ICC Twenty20 world cup 2009 has been announced on 7 May 2009. The 15-member squad, led by batsman Chris Gayle, includes twenty20 specialists like Kieron Pollard. The squad has a number of hard hitters like Captain Chris Gayle, Xavier Marshall, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard. Moreover, there are some other quality batsmen like veteran Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Lendl Simmons and Denesh Ramdin. Ramdin in their main wicketkeeper, but the selectors named Andre Fletcher as reserve wicketkeeper.

However, the main strength of the West Indies squad is the number of all rounders it features. There are at least 5 all rounders including David Bernard, Pollard, Sulieman Benn, Bravo and Darren Sammy. However, there is one weakness in the side and that is lack of quality spinner. Left arm spinner Sulieman Benn is the only specialist spinners alongside the occasion spinner like Chris Gayle. Let us now focus on the pace department of West Indies squad.

To be honest, West Indies squad perhaps features the most number of pacers among the competing teams of the tournament. In fact, there are seven pacers in the squad: Jerome Taylor, Fidel Edwards, Lionel Baker, Dwayne Bravo, Bernard, Pollard and Sammy. Overall, I do not think it is a balanced squad. West Indies selectors should have included a few more spinners or spinner all rounders.

The tournament kicks off on 5 June 2009. West Indies was drawn into Group C where they will face Australia and Sri Lanka. Their twenty20 world cup mission starts on 6 June when they take on Australia, before meeting Sri Lanka on 10 June. Last year, West Indies failed to reach the super eight after losing to Bangladesh. So, West Indies cricket fans are expecting something better from their favorite team in the upcoming twenty20 world cup.

West Indies Squad for ICC Twenty20 World Cup 2009

Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Xavier Marshall, Lendl Simmons, Ramnaresh Sarwan, David Bernard, Kieron Pollard, Sulieman Benn, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Sammy, Denesh Ramdin, Andre Fletcher, Lionel Baker, Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards

West Indies Cricket Board Seeks Load to ICC

You might think that global economic slowdown is the reason behind West India Cricket Board (WICB)’s current economic problem. Well, this is not the cast in fact. West Indies cricket board is now facing serious financial crisis because of several reasons. They recently sought help of international cricket council (ICC), asking for a loan of $3m. ICC has also accepted it positively and recommended it to its IDI Board (ICC Development International) to grant the loan.

Recently, WICB got a huge amount from Stanford 20-20 tournament, but they had to spend much of the amount to pay the legal costs occurred due to a legal conflict with team sponsor Digicel.

Hindustantimes reported:

The ICC's Kaushik Das (CFO) and Haroon Lorgat (CEO) have viewed the request favourably and recommended that to the IDI Board (ICC Development International) that the loan be advanced, "repayable in one year by September 2009 at a minimum interest rate".

A WICB source revealed that the Board had to forego their share of prize money from the Stanford games because of a prior agreement to pay off legal costs accrued in expensive litigation involving team sponsors Digicel.

Well, that is very nice that ICC is going to provide some monetary help to West Indies Cricket Board. The main problem of West Indies cricket is that they do not have a huge fan of cricket like India. So, big-money sponsor deal is not possible for WICB. TV right of WICB can be sold out for a huge sum of money and also they do not have a star player like Brian Lara anymore. The harsh reality is that young generation in the island nations are losing their interest for cricket, seeing lack of money in the game. Thus, the quality of cricket is getting deteriorated in West Indies. Stanford tournament has come as a welcome preventive to this problem, but still it is not enough to eradicate the financial problem totally.