West Indies win!

The ICC tournament. Yeahhh!!! Its the first major win for West Indies cricket in many a year. In fact our first win in a major one day tournament since 1979. Mind you we were undisputed rulers of International cricket until 1995 and had our finest hours in the 80s and early 90s but somehow even then the big one day tournaments escaped us as our team always found a way to lose at the end.

Now after the last ten years in the wilderness, losing series after series, reaching the depths of despair some would say rock bottom, after testing the faith of even the most die hard fan we managed to win this tournament. I guess its true what they say about every dog having his day.

congratulations to the entire team. Since this is my blog though I'm going to single out fellow bajan, Courtney Browne, for praise. Probably the most hated man in West Indies cricket for his dropped catch off Steve Waugh in 1995, having spent the last 5 years in the cricket wilderness, a man who had been written off as being good at the regional level but no good at the international level, Courtney Browne was there at the end guiding this team to a win. The stone which the builders reject has become the cornerstone, at least for this victory. Could this be redemption?

With the score at 158-8 , all appeared lost but Browne and fellow bajan player Ian Bradshaw stood firm and somehow through luck, skill and probably alot of prayer were able to see West Indies through to a victory. What a victory this must have been for a team who a few weeks ago left England after being whitewashed 4-0. Here they now return to England ,the scene of one of the poorest performances ever by a West Indies squad, to give us this victory and show that like a phoenix maybe we too can rise from the ashes. Vindication? Maybe not just yet but it sure beats losing.

Mind you I must now state that we can celebrate today, go wild if you must it was a great victory, but we cannot let this victory change our overall view of West Indies cricket overnight. The West Indies team is wildly inconsistent, inexperienced and badly guided and trained. The right mechanisms still need to be put in place to ensure further success and consistency. The 47s and 94s all out, the whitewashes, the poor bowling and batting performances that have become so much a part and parcel of West Indies cricket cannot simply be ignored because of one day where everything clicked or more correctly where we got lucky and won. What this day does is give us hope but let our overall view not be completely swayed to believe that all is well simply due to this win. Success does not come overnight, much work is to be done.

That said, victory is sweet. Congrats to the team. The West Indian people have been through so much in the past few weeks with storms and hurricanes devastating some of our island states that we deserve some bit of good news to give us hope for the future. They say cricket is life in the West Indies so hopefully this win will raise the spirits of the people. Thank you once again West Indies cricket.

P.S: Doan feel I aint gine cuss wunnah bad if wunnah continue embarrassing me in test cricket doah.