West Indies’ Marlon Samuels plays a shot from the bowling of India’s Ravindra Jadeja during a T20I at Sabina Park
cricket ground in Kingston, Jamaica, Sunday, July 9, 2017. Associated Press / Ricardo Mazalan, File
Tri-nation football for Barbados
Caribbean L 38 ife, Jan. 4–10, 2019
Sir Vivian
Continued from Page 37
Sir Viv told reporters in India last
week that England has played well in
the past but they have always fallen
short at the last moment.
He said Pakistan and India are two
teams that can defeat anyone, noting
that Australia is another great team.
The former Master-Blaster said
there are four or five teams that have
the potential to win the 2019 World
Cup.
West Indies are ranked ninth in
the ICC one-day rankings, a position
that forced them to play a qualifying
tournament last March in order to
reach the May 30 to July 14 tournament.
However, they are to improve on
their ODI form, winning just three of
11 games last year in bilateral series.
West Indies have not won an ODI
series in four years.
Sir Viv, a member of the World Cup
winning sides of 1975 and 1979, said
he was hopeful the Windies would
improve their fortunes.
West Indies Twenty20 captain,
Carlos Braithwaite.
Associated Press / Lynne Sladky
recent Twenty20 series against Bangladesh.
The regional team produced a strong
all-round performance in the final
match at the Shere Bangla National
Stadium, to come away with an
emphatic 50-run victory to clinch the
series 2-1.
Braithwaite revealed that Reifer had
taken up the post of interim head coach
ahead of the series and his encouragement
to the squad has had a galvanizing
effect.
He said Reifer has been tremendous
for the team since he came on board,
bringing a lot of positivity.
Reifer, a former West Indies captain,
is an experienced coach who has
worked extensively with the Combined
Campuses and Colleges (CCC), based
in Barbados.
He was coach of the West Indies A
team and was drafted into the senior
West Indies team for the recent tour of
India when Toby Radford fell ill.
He managed just two and one against
Bangladesh in the Caribbean last year
and had scores of 18 and one in the
opening matches of the recently concluded
series.
Lewis missed the tour of India last
year (2018) for personal reasons. He is
the only active West Indies player in the
top 50, with veteran Marlon Samuels
lying 42nd in the batting rankings.
The Trinidadian was one of several
West Indies players making strides in
the rankings.
Continued from Page 37
Continued from Page 37
Windies batsmen in top five
West Indies
By George Alleyne
Wiser now from their mistakes that
placed them in the bottom rung of the
regional football competition, Barbados
Tridents are gearing for the future by
hosting a European and a fellow Caribbean
team this month.
Between Jan. 21 and 29, Barbados
will be home to world-rated Serbia
and St. Kitt and Nevis in a triangular
series.
The 162nd FIFA-ranked Tridents
have a lot to learn from their exposure
in this Barbados invitational from the
29th-ranked Serbia, and are in with a
good chance against the 136th-ranked
St. Kitts and Nevis.
“We are trying to expose our players
now to a higher standard of play,
because we think that this is one of
the major ways that we can improve
our football on the island,” the Nation
newspaper reported Barbados Football
Association, Randy Harris, saying.
“We are getting a lot of requests
from teams to visit Barbados and one
of those teams we are able to accommodate
is Serbia.”
This tri-nation series comes after
a less than stellar performance of the
Bajans in the Confederation of North,
Central American, and Caribbean Federation
(Concacaf) Nation’s League
qualifiers competition.
They notched up only one victory
in five matches, and stand at number
23 with only one game left in that
competition, out of which the top 10
teams will compete for the prestigious
regional Gold Cup.
One those lost games was a fixture
against Guyana in which Barbados had
earned a 2-2 draw but subsequently saw
that decision changed to a 3-0 loss after
Concacaf upheld an appeal by the Guyanese
who protested that the Barbadians
had fielded ineligible players.
In spite of holding Barbadian passports
because their parents were born
on the island, the two players were
ruled ineligible because they had played
for England at youth level.
A recent FIFA rule-change stipulates
that they should have been cleared with
both the English Football Association
and FIFA before wearing the Barbados
colors. But the Barbados Football Association
had sought and obtained clearance
from the English FA only.
“It is unfortunate what has happened
in terms of the eligibility of the
two English players but I look at these
things differently,” stated Harris. “In
the future as we go forward, we know
everything that we have to look for
before putting a player that doesn’t
have a history in Barbados on the team.
So that would be a thing of the past for
those coming in the future.”
The BFA president, who also heads
the Caribbean Football Union, said that
in the island’s future “we expect to be
doing much bigger things in football
and if these hiccups happen at this
time, we have to use it as a learning
experience.”
BFA President, Randy Harris.
Photo by George Alleyne