Two Winters and One Summer of English Cricket and Continued Adventures

[Logie66]

Trinidad Day 5 - Second Session

So would the Windies go for the win, if they did this would give England more of a chance, the more shots played the more probability of chances being served up.  Smith opened with Simmons due to the hamstring injury sustained by Gayle.

Anderson was bowling well, the upset stomach from two days ago fully cleared up by the looks of it, and he eventually made the breakthrough.  Collingwood taking a superb diving catch in the slips after which he went running all round the ground.



Simmons had made his way back to the edge of the ground when he obviously got a message from the dressing room to challenge the decision.  We then got to see the funniest sight of the tour, umpire Daryl Harper gesticulating to Simmons to get of the field, hilarious    This brought Sarwan to the wicket, nine more chances for England to take !!

As always just after lunch the Digicel girls turned up in the Carib stand, so for one last time another enjoyable picture of the Digicel girls  



England turn to Spin early and it"s Swann who gets the first crack at the Windies batsmen. Big shout for leg before against Smith and Harper puts his finger up, Smith decides to challenge the decision, no joy as the decision is upheld and Smith is back in the hutch, good start for England this  

The joy of joys Sarwan edges one and Collingwood snaffles another in the slips, the England boys go mad as they celebrate that wicket and Colly goes off running again.





Sarwan has had a great series with his beautiful batting and has been a delight to watch this tour, but the sight of him walking back warms the England fans, we really do have a chance of saving the series here thanks to Swann"s early wickets  



Hinds and Chanderpaul then take a bit of pressure off the Windies by seeing the team through to tea, another seven wickets to get !!

[Logie66]

Trinidad Day 5 - Final Session

So who would have thought we would have seen this today, at last an entertaining and enthralling days cricket. We all thought this final day would be similar to Barbados how wrong were we !

After tea it"s Anderson and Swann, Monty should be on again soon, no wickets yet but he has been dangerous, he"ll also probably lose some more of his match fee for even more excessive appealling, keep going Monty !!

Fourth over after tea and England get Chanderpaul LBW, he challenges, he loses   No more referrals for the Windies and a key wicket for England !!



Four overs later and the Aussie   is gone, Anderson gets one to nip back at Nash and he"s given LBW by Umpire Harper, five more wickets required, this is a great effort by England !!

Hinds and Rmadin then get through another half an hour, all precious time for England.  Strauss at last gives Monty another go, first ball he has Hinds caught at slip and the we"re all up on our feet !



This game is all about wickets now, the Windies aren"t even worried about scoring runs, it"s time and the overs being seen out they are watching.  England use up there final referral, seems a bit in desparation that one.  Monty has been plugging away, appealling a lot, but without much luck.



Finally after occupying the crease for an hour, Monty gets Gayle, another leg before shout and this one is given, Windies seven down and nine overs left to get the remaining three !

Time is running out, it looks like this great effort by England will fall just short.  Then we"re up on our feet again, Anderson bowls Powell, 20 balls left 2 wickets required, can they do it !!

Monty replaces Swann, he"ll have two of the remaining three overs, England close round the batsmen, putting them under as much pressure as possible.



Everything just drops short and doesn"t go to hand.



Ramdin and Edwards see out the last over the West Indians are celebrating a Test series win for the first time since 2003.





What a day !! It"s taken until the last day cricket on the tour, but the most enjoyable one so far.  A tense and intriguing days play, good effort by England, but well played to the Windies on winning the series 1-0.

[Logie66]

My last day of leisure today before we start the journey home tomorrow, so I"m now heading down to the pool for some last rays of sun.

I"ll be thinking about the performance of the players today and will post a summary of individual performances and some final comments on the tour, the pitches, the people and lovely Country"s that I"ve spent some time in over the last 30 days  

[Honeybadg]

To be fair to Botham he slated them for the entire game ... not only after the event!

Last game they declared way too late ... and had Anderson at the wicket hitting the air for an hour ... when they were effective 300-1 ...

This game they are 1-0 down ... they have to gamble.

The last two wickets looked easy ... but the last one was disintegrating at the end.

Monty"s crazy appeals cost him in the end as they referred something that could never have been out ... and then they had no option to refer one which look good.

That said Monty"s celebration is one of the best things I have ever seen - for the last plumb decision ... tinsel toes on burning coals ... GENIUS.

L

[Logie66]

Botham is never happy with anything, Strauss was on a hiding to nothing whatever he had done would have been wrong.  In all honesty the wicket wasn"t really disintegrating, the Windies were cracking under the pressure due to the fact they were blocking everything being served up.

I"m sorry to say all the pundits would not have made anything happen in Barbados and Trinidad.  The man of the series for the Windies should be the Groundsman.

The reason we didn"t win in Antigua was that Flintoff was injured and Harmison was unwell, Strauss was unable to enforce the follow-on, end-of.

They nearly produced a result yesterday to save the series, having seen them slog their guts out against a negative Windies team they should be praised for nearly doing so, not slated every chance someone gets.

[Chipaccrual]

Great blogging Don.  Hope you have a safe journey back,

There"ll be a pint waiting for you in Cardiff from me as a thank you for a brilliant 30 days of reading. (Although I think you may have created some demand for future words and photos   )

[Logie66]

Great blogging Don.  Hope you have a safe journey back,

There"ll be a pint waiting for you in Cardiff from me as a thank you for a brilliant 30 days of reading. (Although I think you may have created some demand for future words and photos   )

Got my eyes on South Africa next winter for a couple of weeks, could make it an annual event  

[Honeybadg]

... fair shout on pundits being VERY (overly) negative ... though I do enjoy Bob Willis once he gets on his high horse.

I expect Sarwan might have had a bit to do with them winning!

England lost because they got bowled out for 51.

I thought that Swann made Monty up his game and that is good.

Harmison - the question is why would you ever pick someone who is always inhured and doesn"t really want to play??

Strauss batted very well ... but where is the edge ... all he is doing is making robotically slow decisions.

I have spent a couple of happy days on the edge of the Barmy Army in Australia ... and great fun ... but you want the end result too ... Ashes looks pretty tough at the moment!

IPL an annoying distraction ... how many English players will get injured in that??

Great blog!

Louis

[duke3016]

Have a safe Journey home......

Great stories, great analysis, great pictures

Priceless..........

[Logie66]

This morning saw the party that joined us in Barbados depart for home, for some strange reason everyone who started in Antigua has an extra day.  So last night we had a few beers in the hotel, went for a meal and then visited the best local bar again, Shakers. A few images of the last night for most in Trinidad.

Phil and Dawn Tufnell

Dawn and Me

The Last Supper at Satchmo"s

International Darts at Shaker"s

The Welsh Triumph

[Logie66]

So the final day has arrived and we are returning home.  The trip has been a wonderful experience, beautiful Country"s, friendly people, gorgeous weather and some interesting cricket, livened up on the last day.

Everyone is ready to come home now, it has been a long tour and I desparately need to do some washing   Looking forward to getting back to the Uk, having a pint of bitter, playing in the online league on Sunday, not looking forward to the weather that much though, it"s been nice to laze about in shorts for the last 30 days  

I will close the blog on my return with my player and Country review, at that point the Blog will be complete and any further postings will take away from what the Blog was, a update on my tour around the West Indies.

I have enjoyed updating this and reporting on the games and everything else that has gone on when I have been away.  It"s been a blast, thank you to everyone for the comments and in Duke it"s good to know that "One Winter in English Cricket" got him interested in Cricket.

[tumblet]

what a great blog, your writing and photo taking has been excellent, and im sure I along with everyone would be pleased if you kept some kind of blog going when you return.

Have a safe trip, and u will be glad to know its getting warmer in the uk, so you might be able to keep your shorts on..

[Logie66]

Returned safely to the UK, although suffered from the night flight and lack of sleep, stopping in a hotel until tomorrow to catch up on sleep.

[Logie66]

Had to share this with you all, on our way to the airport in Trinidad we passed a few roadside adverts, in particular for Cesspit Cleaning.  This was the pick of them all and made us all laugh on the coach  

[Logie66]

All a bit strange watching the 20/20 on the TV tonight, especially as it"s at the Queens Park Oval, only a few days since I was there.  Not going well and expect England to lose this one, not enough runs tonight.

Expect all the pundits to all follow the Strauss isn"t a one day player line, to be honest it"s 20/20 and nothing really matters in that game, you either come off or you don"t.

Getting myself settled and ready for the league game tonight, back to reality