What to do with spare cash...

Sir Allen Stanford may be doing thing with his earnings in the Caribbean, but this piece has slightly perplexed me.

The Stanford Super Stars match which was scheduled for June next year has had to be cancelled after India could obviosuly find no place for it in the team's busy schedule.

According to the piece, US$5million match was up for grabs at the Stanford Cricket Ground in Antigua, but now Stanford and his 14 legends of West Indies cricket "have decided that the money would best be spent in grassroots cricket in the West Indies." With such a staggering amount on offer in the first place, surely the priority would be to give the funds to grass roots in the first place or do I miss the point?

Cars n' cricket

Who gets to keep the cars and motors won by opposition players for man-of-the-match on foreign soil? These are questions going through my mind when, say, the likes of Matthew Hoggard picked up a motorbike in Nagpur a few years ago.

So local manufacturers would have been pleased when Gautam Gambhir picked up a white Maruti for his 52-ball 63 on Saturday in the first Twenty20 in India.

And here are two more classic images of past players with their booty. Ravi Shastri for his Champion of Champions performance in 1985 in Australia.

And the West Indies receiving a vehicle-of-its-time for an unknownTest victory.

A side for the future

1. Chris Gayle (capt), 2 Devon Smith, 3 Shivnarine Chanderpaul, 4 Marlon Samuels, 5 Runako Morton, 6 Dwayne Bravo, 7 Dwayne Smith, 8 Darren Sammy, 9 Dinesh Ramdin (wk), 10 Ravi Rampaul, 11 Daren Powell.

Finally. Even before the West Indies secured their first victory on tour, I thought that this was a side that could finally win a game. The XI had a refreshing look to it and this was translated into the fielding and batting yesterday at the Oval, Powell apart. For once the West Indies looked like they wanted to win something. Or could it be the old 20-minute attention span thing in class, where the West Indies are prone to the same after 20 overs? Nevertheless, this young side could be together for a long while yet. And if that's the case, who is to say that the West Indies can't be the team to dominate in the 2010s like they did in the 70s and 80s?

Happy days

Can anyone recall this photo and after what match? It certainly looks like Jimmy Adams on top and Curtly at the wheel in the photo... (Getty Images)

Sammy and George

Will this be another classic West Indian story?

Darren Sammy's seven wickets no doubt sparked party scenes on the beautiful island of St Lucia: it will also be one of the talking points if West Indies hold out for an amazing win. If that happens it will only further jettison his already famed status as St Lucia's top sportsman.

There is isn't much association to cricket where Sammy comes from. Born in the south of the island, his first bat was made of coconut frond stems while he couldn't play at weekends because he was a Seventh Day Adventist.

St Lucia's second best sportsperson is Nadine George. The MBE and bludgeoning opening bat for West Indies Women's also holds down a job as a marine coast guard, tracking down drug smugglers by day. If only the WICB would pull their finger out and get more international games then she might break more records. Read more here.

When laziness was a bad word

Another West Indies podcast is up: click here.

This week, I'm on the case of former greats of the game to discuss the great Caribbean tradition of churning out brilliant fielders. Now, you wouldn't have thought that fielding is a West Indies trademark by looking at the current West Indies lot, but there have been some fine fielders in the past. Panther, stealth and electric have been just some of the words to describe the likes of Lloyd, Richards, Logie and Harper.

And in the 1930s, Lord Constantine, perhaps the pioneer of Caribbean fielding, even made crowds turn up before the game had even started after they heard of his ability to knock stumps down from 30 yards and catch balls behind his back.

A tighter affair back then

Just a few years after the great tied Test between Australia and West Indies in 1960, many of the Windies side played in an equally thrilling match against England at Lord's in 1963.

Watch the video here with some commentary from Sobers and wait for the bit about Wes Hall "... sending down the atomic stuff".

What happens now?

Oh how I wanted the West Indies to chase down 303 against Sri Lanka.

I really did hope they would manage it; for the World Cup's sake and to lift the depressive tendencies my hotel reception girls apply when the Windies lose games.

So the days are ticking down to the Barbados Super 8 games. The Kensington Oval looks a picture and there should at least be a series of well-attended games here.

But there will be a couple of things missing. Notably, India v Pakistan. I've yet to post anything on the demise (a sad one in Pakistan's case) of these two teams.

So what are your views? Does it really take an Indian TV show, Cricket Star, to find the next talent in this vast country? Is Ian Chappell right when he says Sachin Tendulkar should retire? Personally, I thought India would go well in the Caribbean. They had played a year schedule whereby they were unlikely to be fatigued by the time of the World Cup and looked a settled side. But playing away from home obviously plays havoc with their talent in India's case.

Post your thoughts below and keep posted over the coming week as the Nutley paints a picture on how Barbados is preparing for the games.

Big Bird bites back

Ever since England won that sensational game at Lord's against the West Indies in 2000, I've always been mystified as to the demise of cricket in the Caribbean.

The dearth of fast bowling is obviously one of the major reasons but has there really been a lack of talent?

Tino Best, Fidel Edwards, Ian Bradshaw, Corey Corrymore etc have all shown spark but haven't been able to show the kind of bowling so feared by the world's opening batsmen in the 70s and 80s.

And Joel Garner phrases it brilliantly in the Jamaica Observer when he suggests that it's all down to an "indifferent work atitude". Burgeoning talent in Barbados obviously needs Big Bird to get them all up running at 4am if they are to succeed.

Trophy tales; prison humour

Australia duly won their first ICC Champions Trophy in five attempts, but there was a small price to pay after they had trounced the West Indies.

Clearly agitated at the longevity of the trophy presentation, Australian players reportedly pushed Indian cricket chief Sharad Pawar off the presentation stage so they could pose with the trophy and get out of the ground. (If it had really got out of hand, Ricky Ponting could have ended up like the photo above.)

Not to be outdone, the Indian media went to town on the incident and it also prompted a quote from chief cricket selector Dilip Vengsarkar, who said: "You expect such behaviour from uneducated people. If they wanted to pose for photographs, they could have politely requested him.

Still on the ICC Trophy, click here for a highly entertaining Graeme Smith diary according to iafrica's Dan Nicholl. The entry for 19 October is the highlight:

"Ahmedabad is not my favourite place on earth, and we're here for a week. There's nothing to do, the food is awful, and Charl reckons that the hotel reminds him of when he was a prison warder. Everyone laughed at breakfast when he said that, except for Herschelle, who went very pale, and got up and left
without saying a word. He's been a bit quiet since he saw the police. Hope he's okay."

Col Sanders to the rescue

Chris Gayle may be hitting form with the bat, but it is metaphors with the ball which could make for healthy (or unhealthy) reading over the coming Champions Trophy games.

If you thought waking up after an all-nighter on the sofa with a KFC family-sized bucket beside you was bad enough, spare a thought for Gayle, the spinner, if he turns in some 'finger lickin'' performances.

News reaches Nutley that KFC, the world's largest chain of chicken restaurants, have stepped in to replace Digicel as the team's sponsor thanks to the ICC's strict marketing rules during the tournament.

The US company, who also sponsor a Caribbean tournament, have gone on promotional overdrive as well. 50 lucky Indian winners will be given the chance to dine with Brian Lara et al. No doubt Lara will be regaling his quotes from earlier this week: "Very early in life, we tell our fathers that we want to play cricket for the West Indies, and the next thing we want is a box of KFC chicken."

Team-sized mega buckets at the ready.

Teams touch down for Trophy

As the teams arrive in India for the ICC Champions Trophy, there is the view that this tournament is actually quite important.

A few months ago the Trophy was an unwanted nuisance for England in their preparation for the Ashes. Now it's a serious pointer towards the World Cup side when Fletcher's men will fall at the Super Eight stages.

The last Champions Trophy in England was clearly a nuisance for its party-pooper organisers as well; just like the '99 World Cup when the ECB made chilly May its start date and Tony Blair set off damp squib fireworks.

Scheduled in September two years ago, few spectators made light of the cold weather, USA were playing and the highlight in the early stages was a frenetic pitch invasion by Aussie and Kiwi supporters trying to get to the middle without being caught.

And then there was the final. As run by run was chased down by the Windies, an England result was never in doubt until Browne and Bradshaw held off in the dark. If anything, the result and following scenes gave back to the West Indies supporters memories of when the Oval was packed with the Caribbean community and, more often than not, victory for their team.

Can the Windies retain the trophy?

No sex please, just chill

World Cups may not always be memorable for fans on the field but off it, well, it depends how you use your time.

During the soccer World Cup in Germany, brothels in Berlin and Munich saw an active trade after thousands of foreign women infiltrated the country to use their skills.

Now, word reaches Nutley of the possible legalisation for sex workers during the two-month cricket jamboree in the Caribbean next March.

At least one Caribbean Community health minister has said that regions should consider registering prostitutes for the World Cup, although a quick search reveals that the islands will not welcome such activity.

Licensing for commercial work during the tournament surely means that accreditation is necessary; after all the media, sponsors and administators wear photo ID, so will the sex workers?

Going to the heights

Today's cricket page asks "Who was the greatest all-rounder?". While we will be getting the views of Garry Sobers this week on the current crop, there could soon be one addition to England's ranks. Stuart Broad, son of England's former opener Chris, has been making inroads at Leicestershire: 45 wickets in his 15 matches and a steady left-handed batsman to boot.

And it's not only his worth with bat and ball... he's a tall chap too. Last year it was Essex's Will Jefferson, a shade over 6ft 10, who was being banded as a future England player, then it was Chris Tremlett at 6ft 7.

It is thought that Broad could reach a height of 6ft 8, which would make him the equal tallest man to play Test cricket; Joel Garner performed at that height for his 58 Test for the West Indies. Incidentally, the smallest to play internationally, are thought to be a Fiji pair at 5ft 1, while the heaviest with Derbyshire's W. Foulke at 25 stone.