Lara still harbouring semi-final thoughts

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) – West Indies captain Brian Lara is clutching onto hopes of a semi-final spot in Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 in spite of his side’s dismal form in the Super-8 series and precarious position in the standings.

West Indies crashed to their third consecutive loss in the CWC second-round Sunday when Sri Lanka whipped them by 113 runs at the Guyana National Stadium at Providence.

With only two points and needing to make the top four to advance, West Indies are a low sixth in the eight-team standings, although they have played more games than all the other teams.

“I am an eternal optimist,” Lara told reporters at Sunday’s post-match press conference.

“We’ve got to pick up and fight because you never know what can happen,” he added.

The beleaguered Windies, who have not tasted a CWC victory since leaving Jamaica where they won all three games in the first round, have three matches remaining.
They play next on Tuesday April 10 against World No 1 South Africa in Grenada, before playing Bangladesh and England.

“We’re going to have a couple of days off and re-assess the situation. We have to be sure we are fresh for the last three matches,” Lara said.

Scotland Yard cops arrive for Bob Woolmer murder probe

Four Scotland Yard detectives, led by Superintendent John Sweeney, arrived in the island yesterday to assist local cops probing the murder of former Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer.

The four detectives from Scotland Yard’s Specialist Crime Directorate will be briefed by Deputy Commissioner Mark Shields, who is heading local investigations into Woolmer’s March 18 murder.

Days after Woolmer’s naked body was found in room 374 on the 12th floor of the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Shields had announced that overseas assistance would be sought if local police deemed it necessary.

Yesterday, he insisted that the Scotland Yard sleuths were not here because local cops were incapable of handling the probe.

“This is normal procedure, we have to start retracing our steps to see if we left anything out,” Shields said.

Shields also dismissed reports in the British media that Woolmer downed a bottle of whisky in his room on March 18 during the hours after Pakistan’s humiliating loss to Ireland and the time he was found by a housekeeper.

West Indies’ World Cup disasters deal a blow to fragile Caribbean cricket

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) – It didn’t look as though Brian Lara had lost a cricket match. It was as if he had lost much more.

The West Indies, that most artificial of geographical groupings based loosely on former British colonies, had just lost their third World Cup match in a row, breaking the hearts of a region that is used to decades of cricket supremacy.
The fact that the World Cup was being staged in the Caribbean for the first time did not help either.

In most countries, such a failure might result in the captain or the coach being fired along with the selectors.

But in the Caribbean, the very future of West Indies cricket is at stake. The sport is under pressure from the growing American influence of basketball and the global pull of soccer.

Cricket is simply not the number one choice for young Caribbean sports fans anymore.

West Indies cricket officials had hoped the World Cup would rekindle interest in the sport in the Caribbean. But the murder investigation into death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer in Jamaica and the poor performance of the home team have cast a pall over the tournament.

Lara’s team was hammered by 103 runs by Australia, seven wickets by New Zealand and 113 runs by Sri Lanka. These results are unacceptable to West Indies fans, knives are already out and recriminations have started.

Colin Croft, one of the seemingly endless chain of pace bowlers once produced by the West Indies in the 1970s and 80s, said Sunday’s toothless loss against Sri Lanka was embarrassing. “The West Indies cricket team, based on what I saw yesterday, is in a very bad state overall,” he wrote in the country’s main newspaper The Guyana Chronicle.

Windies fined for slow over rate

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) – West Indies have been fined for a slow over rate during their 113-run loss to Sri Lanka in their Cricket World Cup, Super Eight match Sunday.

The regional side were two overs short of the target at the scheduled finish of the Sri Lanka innings, match referee Jeff Crowe said.

In accordance with the ICC Code of Conduct regulations governing over-rate penalties for players, captain Brian Lara has been fined 20 per cent of his match fee, while the other players have received 10 per cent fines.

Sri Lanka condemned West Indies to their third straight loss in the Super Eight by raising 303 for five off 50 overs and then dismissing the hosts for 190 in 44.3 overs.

GraceKennedy expresses delight with Champs 2007

DEPUTY CEO of GraceKennedy, Don Wehby, has told the Observer that the corporate giants were extremely pleased with this the first of their three-year sponsorship of the annual ISSA Boys’ & Girls’ Athletic Championships which wrapped up at the National Stadium on Saturday.

In January, GraceKennedy announced they would be coming on as title sponsors of the high school championships in a deal worth J$42M representing $14m per year for the next three years. The announcement came just days after long-time sponsors VMBS, who sponsored the event since 1992, announced they were pulling out.

Speaking to the Observer from Trinidad yesterday, Wehby said things went well for GraceKennedy in their first year as title sponsors.

“I would say that we are very pleased, obviously it’s a learning experience, but we are pleased that there were a number of fantastic performances that we saw in our first year of sponsorship,” he said.