Kaieteur News
Wednesday October 08, 2014
Page 31
Linden wins AOG Champions Games title Section Eight, Linden strolled to victory overall on Sunday in the multi-sport Assemblies of God (AOG) Annual Champions Games, using the fact that the event was held in Linden at Mackenzie Sports Club (MSC), to their full advantage. The Section amassed 234 points to win the Championships, which featured Athletics, Basketball, Football and Cricket competitions. Section Five, East Coast were second with 140 points with the Georgetown Section Six third with 93 points. A point separated Section Nine, West Coast Demerara and Section Seven, East Bank Demerara with the former taking fourth place with 86 points and latter fifth with 85 points. Section Three, West Berbice were sixth on 62 points while Section One, Corentyne finished seventh on 30 points and Section Ten, Essequibo Coast eighth on 22 points.
Section Four, Upper East Coast finished in the cellar position on five points. Linden won the Football competition, while Georgetown took home the Basketball title and West Berbice the cricket title. The toss up was the Athletics competition, which Linden dominated on their home ground to edge the other Sections. Linden’s Trevon Castang and East Coast’s Timothy Haynes shared the Champion Boy title while G e o r g e t o w n ’s J u d e a Crandon was adjudged Champion Girl. Director of the National Youth Ministries, Reverend Winston Assanah, said that the competition is an excellent experience for young people. He believes that it is important to maintain the spirit and physical beings in tandem, as this is important for human growth. “I think it was a fantastic experience of physical skill in Guyana and the church
The winning Section Eight Football team pose for a photo opportunity following their triumph at the MSC Ground, Linden on Sunday. community. Not only was there a display of morality and discipline, but also athletic ability,” Assanah
indicated, noting that youths need to be balanced and more “involved in sports”. Assanah thanked the
Youth Ministries National Sports Coordinator, Shane Moses, the leaders of the Assemblies of God, Pastor
Selwyn Sills, and the sponsor, Beepat’s under their Milo brand for supporting the event.
India vs. West Indies, 1st ODI, Kochi
WI aim to compete on even footing ESPNcricinfo - Once was West Indies. Countries wanted to host them every year, much to their own batsmen’s chagrin. Almost every batsman in the 1980s went through hell more often than he wanted to because West Indies were the boxoffice. Everybody wanted to w a t c h t h e m . M o n e y, attention, competition, they took it wherever they went. This India tour of theirs is now the third in the last four seasons. The hosts would have killed for this schedule in the 1980s. Now it’s just a yawn. There is no build-up or anticipation to the tour whatsoever. The Champions League Twenty20 drew more selling effort from the stakeholders. It’s not all down to the opposition but West Indies have contributed to this indifference. The last time they were here they lost two Tests in little over five days. Some of their big stars looked the least interested in playing international cricket and it was ugly watching them play without any application. This tour starts with a format they like a little more than the Tests. Five ODIs are their first call of duty, but they
have already lost two practice matches to an India A team. Two of their big stars - Chris Gayle and Sunil Narine - are missing but three others were away playing Champions League so that should give them hope. Dwayne Smith, captain Dwayne Bravo and Andre Russell can be explosive, but they are up against what is recognised as the best ODI team by the ICC, in its home conditions, with its spinners and ODI batsmen on a high after thumping England in England. This will be a big test of West Indies’ batsmen, especially in the middle overs, when the India spinners will apply the chokehold. That is where England struggled against India. That is also where West Indies are likely to struggle. Even if they can manage to not lose wickets to and keep scoring at a fair pace against spinners, they will merely bring the matches to even terms. Watch out for Ajinkya Rahane finally managed to score his first ODI century when he helped India win the series in England. It was his first break
Ajinkya Rahane
Ravi Rampaul from good-looking but middling innings in the 50over format, and it came at the top of the order, thanks to the absence of the injured Rohit
Sharma. Rohit is going to miss this series too, which gives Rahane another shot at opening the innings. This will be the last ODI series India play before they go to Australia for a triangular series and the World Cup. The opening combination is one issue they will want to resolve by the end of this series. One of the ways West Indies can get the better of India is early wickets. In Ravi Rampaul they have one man who has done that before. His average of 23 and strike rate
of 24.6 against India are a significant improvement on his career stats. This being the start of a new season, West Indies will hope Rampaul is fit and ready to go. Team news India have rested R Ashwin and brought Kuldeep Yadav into the squad. Either Kuldeep or Amit Mishra should replace Ashwin in the XI. West Indies have recalled Marlon Samuels, and it will be interesting to see if they can make space for him in the XI. Both Leon Johnson and Jermaine Blackwood have struggled in the tour games so it might make sense to slot Dwayne Smith in for Chris Gayle. Sulieman Benn should come in for Sunil Narine. Pitch and weather The last international Kochi hosted was between the same two teams, and back then West Indies folded against spin. The forecast, though, is not great, with scattered thunderstoms and a 50% chance of rain. West Indies are one of the three teams that have won more ODIs than they have lost against India in India. Their 20-17 ascendance in bilateral series, however, could be under fire.
Indian spinners have taken 72 wickets against West Indies in the last five years. Over the same period West Indies have not lost even 50 wickets to spinners from any other team. Among teams that have played at least 10 matches against West Indies in this period, only Pakistan’s spinners have a better average (23.53) and economy rate (3.66) against them than India’s 28.23 and 4.48. We s t I n d i e s t e a m manager Richie Richardson is confident his side can cope with the absence of Sunil Narine, “We were positive even without him that we can play well against India and beat India. That’s the attitude we have got to adapt.” MS Dhoni on whether India will experiment during the West Indies series to prepare for the World Cup stated, “We want to see the bigger picture here. We want to do a few things because you don’t want to go to Australia and say we should have done this, we should have done that. We will see what our cricketers can offer ... but it is important to start well and look to win the series.”