Cricket West Indies 2023 Inaugural Headley Weekes Tri Series has gotten off to a most interesting, if inauspicious, start. The Series’ April 19-22 first match produced the rather surprising, totally unexpected, result of the youthful West Indies Academy achieving a lopsided seven-wicket win over the far more senior and experienced Team Headley. The Academy’s win was completed within three days, with victory being achieved before tea on the penultimate day of the scheduled four-day encounter.
As if the victory itself wasn’t surprising enough, so too were its main practitioners. First-class cricket debutant seamers Johann Layne and Kelvin Pitman respectively undermined Team Headley’s star-studded Test players inclusive batting lineup in the first and second innings of the match with their incisive pace. When the Academy batted yet another youngster, Kevlon Anderson, produced an innings of sheer class in stroking a magnificent 153 that was graced with 22 boundaries.
The foundation for the Academy’s eventual victory was laid from as early as the very first session of the match. Having won the toss and taken first strike, Team Headley with no less than six recent/current West Indies Test players: Kieron Powell, Shayne Moseley, Darren Bravo, Sunil Ambris, skipper Joshua DaSilva and Anderson Phillip within its ranks, found Johann Layne’s new ball pace and movement too much to handle.
After Shayne Moseley had been forced to retire hurt, Layne’s incisive opening spell, in which he claimed the first four wickets to fall, left Team Headley tottering at 59/5 after only 18.1 overs. Team Headley’s captain Josh DaSilva, however, then came to his side’s rescue, establishing his batting class with an innings-restoring undefeated century. 136 made of 207 balls, with two sixes and sixteen fours included.
DaSilva was very well supported by Akeem Jordan who batted resolutely, scoring 54 while adding 105 runs in partnership with his captain. Their valuable sixth-wicket partnership helped Team Headley to reach a far more respectable 259-9 than had seemed possible after the first five wickets had fallen for only 59.
Layne ended with figures of 5/39-10 overs. A very impressive display by the nineteen-year-old in his maiden first-class outing.
Akeem Jordan’s very resolute showing with the bat, was soon being duplicated with ball in hand. Jordan was one of Team Hedley’s most impressive bowlers, capturing 2/77 off 21 overs as the Academy was restricted to 323 all out in reply. His all-round match performance would certainly have attracted the attention of the West Indies Selectors as a possible contender to replace the insufficiently productive Kyle Mayers in the West Indies Test XI for the upcoming two-match series at home against India.
While Jordan was busily impressing the West Indies Selectors, the twenty-two-year-old Kevlon Anderson was embarrassing their Guyanese regional counterparts with his maiden first-class century. Having been controversially omitted from the Guyana Harpy Eagles squad for its initial 2023 Caribbean Regional Four-Day Championship matches, Anderson’s brilliant twenty-two boundaries inclusive 153 was a poignant slap-in-the-face reminder to the Guyanese selectors of his obvious batting pedigree.
Facing a first-innings deficit of 64, Team Headley’s second innings was subsequently undermined by yet another debuting Academy seamer. Kelvin Pitman’s incisive fast bowling jolted Team Headley’s batting middle order after Academy captain Nyeem Young had scythed through the top order in capturing the first three wickets with only 37 on the board.
Young finished with figures of 3/17-6, but it was arguably the rookie Pitman’s 3/27 – 7 overs that was the more telling of the two spells. Pitman’s victims included West Indies Test opener Kieron Powell and first innings centurion Joshua DaSilva. The former was well caught behind by wicket-keeler Tevin Imlach, the latter completely castled after having scored only three.
While the attending West Indies Selectors would have been encouragingly pleased by some of the performances on display, they would also have been disappointed by the overall inept batting. Particularly from some of the more experienced Test players.
Keiron Powell (0,20), Darren Bravo (5,12) and Sunil Ambris (12) were all wholly unimpressive in failing to contribute meaningfully to Team Headley’s posted totals of 259-9 in the first innings and 122 all out in the second. The failure of such a vaunted batting lineup to reach 300 in either innings, against the very inexperienced Academy bowling, would also have been regarded by the Selectors as more than a bit embarrassing.
While the batting would have been much less than expected, the Selectors should now be positively encouraged by the displayed performances of the emerging fast-bowling talents Layne, Pitman and Young. Those three, as well as others such as the Barbadian Jair McCallister and the Guyanese Isaiah Thorne, should be placed by CWI under the mentorship of Sir Andy Roberts, Sir Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh just as soon as their involvement in the Headley-Weekes Tri Series is over. All five should also be considered for selection to the West Indies A Team for its scheduled forthcoming tour to Bangladesh next month.
Unfortunately for all the players involved, those whose performances were outstanding and the others who were far less so as well, the Headley-Weekes Tri-Series opening match was played in front of entirely empty stands. Four or five visiting tourist spectators on the morning of the third and final day was the only television-provided evidence of any attendance.
That this should be allowed to occur during such an important series is a travesty and a continuing stain on the long-since obvious inadequacies of CWI’s marketing. The Headey-Weekes matches are now being played at the tail end of Antigua’s annual tourism peak season. The island’s hotels would, therefore, have their respective fair shares of visitors who had they been informed of the match being played might have ventured to the Coolidge Cricket Center (CCC) in far more substantial numbers than the handful that were actually present.
Had a few members of CWI’s over-bloated CCC Headquarters staff been commissioned to conduct an outreach to all the island’s hotels advising them to inform their visitors of the match, the spectator attendance might well have been much greater than the globally televised embarrassing handful. But then again, for the longest while now there has been very little evidence to suggest that anyone at CWI even cares any longer about major regional matches being played in front of completely empty stands.
In days gone by when cricket was one of their most popular pastimes, schoolchildren would invariably be seen attending matches of any significant importance in very large numbers. Ironically, in current times when their attendance at such matches should be encouraged even more as a means of rekindling their waning interest in cricket, CWI’s efforts in doing so have been at best insufficiently sporadic.
As the island home of four of the greatest cricketing practitioners the West Indies has ever produced, in the personalities of its four knights Sir Andy Roberts, Sir Vivian Richards, Sir Richie Richardson and Sir Curtly Ambrose, Antigua also offers “living legends” opportunities to rekindle interest in cricket that CWI has yet to embrace. Any CWI-hosted match of any significant stature held in Antigua should be graced by a Meet A Legend promotion of some sort, by way of encouraging improved spectator attendance.
Rather than employing such innovative measures to improve attendance and create some degree of encouraging atmosphere for participating players to perform within, CWI’s modus operandi would appear to be to just stage the matches without any further thought or care as to how empty the stands are. Why else would the Tri Series matches be scheduled largely during mid-weekdays from Wednesdays through to Saturdays?
An alternative Thursday – Sunday schedule, including both weekend days, would obviously be far more conducive to encouraging spectator attendance. Obvious to everyone, except the apparently indifferent folks at CWI’s marketing and match scheduling departments.
The highly commendable Headley Weekes Tri Series having gotten off to such an interesting if inauspicious opening match start, it will now be very interesting to see what its remaining matches produce. Hopefully, much-improved batting, just as encouraging bowling and many more than a bare handful of onsite spectators to witness it all!