Last week­end, I was a part of a com­men­tary team for the on­line/tele­vi­sion cov­er­age of West In­dies Crick­et Board's four-day semi­fi­nal for the Sir Ever­ton Weekes/George Headley Tro­phy.

De­spite tech­ni­cal chal­lenges, we man­aged to com­plete the as­sign­ments well.That I aban­doned plans to fly two mag­nif­i­cent "Singing En­gine" ("Mad Bull" in Trinidad & To­ba­go) kites that I had made, to be at crick­et over East­er week­end, tells how se­ri­ous this game was to me, as this is the very next lev­el down from Test crick­et. The re­al stress was with the crick­et played. I found my­self of­ten think­ing that this could not be the best that we can pro­duce in re­gion­al crick­et. It was. Noth­ing about it, ex­cept its name, was first class!That game was an em­bar­rass­ment to the lev­els of crick­et ex­pect­ed from first Class crick­eters in this re­gion.

Ar­rival of the stars

Trinidad & To­ba­go con­tained three se­nior, present West In­dies play­ers–Dar­ren Bra­vo, Lendyl Sim­mons and wick­et-keep­er/cap­tain De­nesh Ramdin–and two re­cent for­mer Windies play­ers–faster bowlers Shan­non Gabriel and Rayad Em­rit. All looked un­der­whelmed with this ex­pe­ri­ence.Wind­ward Is­lands con­tained re­cent Windies re­serve wick­et-keep­er/bats­man John­son Charles, for­mer Test open­er De­von Smith and for­mer Windies fast bowler Nelon Pas­cal.Nei­ther team man­aged to get even 250 in any of four in­nings on a per­fect­ly well pre­pared, placid pitch at Queen's Park Oval, T&T get­ting 140-8 de­clared and 105; Wind­wards 248 and 231.The game end­ed on Day 3, with T&T los­ing by, in terms of to­tal runs scored–724–a mam­moth 234 runs.

One could on­ly won­der how long the game would have last­ed had Wind­wards' main bowler, off-spin­ner Shane Shilling­ford, been able to play. On Day 1 he scratched, af­ter feel­ing un­well. So, there must be ku­dos for Wind­ward Is­lands get­ting to the fi­nal this week­end, against Ja­maica, who beat Bar­ba­dos in their semi­fi­nal.

On a mis­sion

At least, Wind­ward Is­lands still have hopes of be­ing four-day Caribbean re­gion­al cham­pi­ons for the very first time, if re­ferred records are cor­rect. They play at home this week­end in St Lu­cia.

Ku­dos too to left-hand­ed medi­um-dob­bler Ken­roy Pe­ters, who ac­count­ed for sev­en T&T 2nd in­ning wick­ets for on­ly 36 runs; a ca­reer best; as T&T dis­in­te­grat­ed to 105 all out.

At Day 1's lunch-time, I had lunch with pres­i­dent of Queen's Park Crick­et Club, for­mer WI wick­et-keep­er Deryck Mur­ray, for­mer WI open­er Bri­an Davis, Dr Nigel Ca­ma­cho, found­ing mem­ber of "Tri­ni Posse" and an in­te­gral part of WIRPA–West In­dies Re­tired Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion–and Col­in Mur­ray, who had played crick­et and soc­cer for T&T.All four, even then, were ab­solute­ly amazed at the pover­ty of the crick­et.

On­ly two bats­men, from vic­to­ri­ous Wind­ward Is­lands–De­von Smith and Rom­mel Cur­ren­cy–made fifties; 63 in 2nd in­nings; 68 in 1st in­nings. Oth­er­wise, the bat­ting was ab­solute­ly sham­bol­ic.

T&T's best bat­ting ef­fort in the game came from open­er Evan Lewis, who made 47 n.o. in their 1st in­nings.Parts of the game were even far­ci­cal, with T&T's cap­tain, Ramdin, de­cid­ing to de­clare his team's 1st in­nings com­plete at 140-8, 105 be­hind Wind­wards' 248, to try to stop Wind­wards get­ting an ex­tra bowl­ing point. Amaz­ing­ly, this was done mid­way on Day 2.I know that it was East­er, but did Ramdin ex­pect an un­be­liev­able mir­a­cle to un­fold on Days 3 and 4? It is no won­der that pres­i­dent of Trinidad & To­ba­go Crick­et Board, Az­im Bas­sarath, has or­dered an in­quiry to that de­ba­cle last week­end.

I al­so know that for­mer West In­dies and T&T play­er, Su­ruj Ra­goonath, now TTCB's CEO, must be livid and speech­less too, with the way-be­low-par per­for­mance of his rep­re­sen­ta­tives.T&T must have start­ed the game as favourites, but even if they were to lose, they lost look­ing ab­solute­ly loose, dis­ori­ent­ed and dis­en­chant­ed with the en­tire pro­ceed­ings, as if the whole game was one large joke.One has to won­der ex­act­ly where the play­ers' heads were dur­ing this short­ened game! All this, mind you, as the last re­al pre­am­ble crick­et re­gion­al­ly to the next in­ter­na­tion­al tour to the Caribbean, by New Zealand, start­ing on June 8.

Start­ing from scratch

Some of our in­ter­na­tion­al crick­eters will have to start all over again, as we are al­ready in se­ri­ous trou­ble.Dwayne Bra­vo is in­jured. No-one knows when he will play again, but at least, he is out for one month.Chris Gayle is still nurs­ing an in­jured leg, so it could be touch and go as to if he will play in what would be his 100th Test, if he plays in the 1st Test v NZ at Sabi­na Park, Kingston, Ja­maica.Mar­lon Samuels is again in­jured too, with no de­fin­i­tive time for his re­turn.Sunil Nar­ine might be mes­meris­ing in T-20's but in es­pe­cial­ly Tests, he is still ques­tion­able, while our fast bowl­ing is in true dire straights.One re­cent hope, Ke­mar Roach, mirac­u­lous­ly sur­vived a bad au­to­mo­bile ac­ci­dent re­cent­ly, while Fi­del Ed­wards and Jerome Tay­lor are on the old­er side of 30.Any­way, I did man­age to fly the kites lat­er last week and was thor­ough­ly pleased with them too. They flew like air­planes; smooth, well bal­anced and singing as loud­ly, as throat­i­ly, as Lu­ciano Pavarot­ti! En­joy!