WEST INDIES A FAILED IN MOST RESPECTS TO ACHIEVE ITS ASPIRATIONS
Stoute brought stability Russell was the bowling success
In spite of Kevin Stoute’s heroic achievement in the last game against Lancashire, and several commendable individual achievements along the way, there can be little doubt that the West Indies A team to tour England and Ireland failed in most respects to achieve its aspirations – but there were sufficient performances of promise to suggest that quite a lot has been gained from the experience. In matches played throughout in generally unusually tropical sunshine the regional side failed to reach the final of the triangular tournament against England Lions and India A and, excepting the brief visit to Ireland (in which both games were won), achieved only one victory as against five defeats. The problem was one of inconsistency. Stoute, who joined the tour mid-way through, brought stability to the lower-order batting with scores of 61 in Ireland, 52 n.o. and 30 n.o. v India A at Northampton and Leicester respectively, and 64 against the England Lions at Worcester. As a bowler he finished the tour by destroying the Lancashire batting with 8-52 at Old Trafford, where the opposition included Kyle Hogg, grandson of former West Indies “legend” Sonny Ramadhin. Andre Russell, conspicuously quicker than his colleagues, was the bowling success, especially in the early matches. With 5-97 he was the only bowler to extract anything from an exceptionally lifeless pitch at Croydon. By then the Jamaican had taken already 5-68 against Glamorgan, and followed with 6-42 in Ireland and 3-75 against England Lions at Worcester. Throughout the Englishmen fielded a team that was very little short of full Test Match strength. Among his several useful lower-order innings Russell scored 64 against Ireland. Gavin Tonge, while not setting the headlines ablaze, contributed steadily with bat and ball. His best bowling return was 4-69 against England Lions at Worcester, and he rallied the lower-order batting in the early games with 46 against Glamorgan and 54 against India A at Croydon. Sometimes when the new-ball bowlers made swift incursions into the opposing batting the opportunity was squandered. That was true particularly in the second innings at Cardiff, where Glamorgan recovered from 76-5, and in allowing England Lions to recover, decisively, from 14-3 at Worcester. Catches were missed too often, especially in the early games, and the wicket-keeping was not above criticism. When the opposing batsmen were set and compiling a strong total, there was reluctance to show imagination in fielding tactics, such as setting a short leg or silly point to get the batsman wondering, and the modern practice of dispensing with third man cost many runs. Captain Devon Smith produced the form by which he had made such a favourable impact on the comparable tour ten years ago only in the “purple period” of the run-glut at Croydon, the excursion to Ireland, and the one mainland victory over India A at Northampton. Then he was again superlative with scores of 170, 114 and 104 and sharing respective partnerships of 225, 130 and 193 with Andre Fletcher whose own scores were 123, 81 n.o. and 88. Otherwise the batting was too inconsistent. All-rounder Imran Khan promised much with 62 in the opening game at Cardiff but had to wait for his 74 in the final fixture at Manchester before he passed fifty again. Although Kirk Edwards hit one substantial score of 147 against England Lions at Northampton, it was Darren Bravo, a late arrival to the side, who brought greater stability with 83 against India A at Leicester and 62 against English Lions at Worcester. There was unexpectedly encouraging support at several grounds from the UK West Indian community, even if the general age was in the “senior citizen” bracket. As he has done for so many similar tours Steve Stephenson did what he could to make the team welcome within that community. However stalwart Tony Leslie, who passed away earlier this year, and the late Frank David, who died a couple of years ago, were dismissed and diminished the core of active UK West Indian cricket support. The promise of Russell and Stoute, the consistency of Tonge, and the proven hope that Smith and Fletcher can yet recapture their best batting form brought a positive more prospective from the tour.
Steve Stephenson MBE
Presents
The Annual
Winston Davis Benefit Cricket Match
Winston Davis XI vs Invitational XI
(Playing for Tony Leslie Cup)
Players Invited: Richie Richardson, Courtney Walsh
Darren Powell, Gareth Breese, Jimmy Adams, Phil Simmons
N Nagamooto, Devon Malcolm,Syd Lawrence, Collis King,
Alvin Kallicharan, Allan Warner, Jamie Trenchfield,
James Pearson, Ricky Williams, Martin Jean Jacques
Frankie Griffiths Denzil Owen, John Hanson, Dennis Chambers.
BristolWest Indies CC
65 Gordon RoadWhitehall
Bristol BS57RD
On
Sunday 18 July 2010
Start: 12.30pmMusic:
Adults £5- Children £3.00
Contact: Steve Stephenson: 0790-1996175 Ahmed Kazi 0121-523-6836
Trevor Samuels 0789-0712427 Carl Gillings 07789965771
Bob Baker 0794-7380426 Charles Robinson 0796-7029442
Tony Leslie
TONY LESLIE: CRICKET SUPPORTER AND CRICKETER MEMORIES AND MEMORIALS
CaribCommx is pleased, and proud, to publish this letter
To Clayton Goodwin,
Thank you very much for the lovely Obituary/tribute you wrote about my father Tony Leslie on his passing.
Yes he was the No.1 International cricket fan and is very much missed by so many people. Yes, local papers like yourself should enlighten our sports fans about community sports personalities that contribute enormously to their community like my father as there are so many like him around. Steve Stephenson, Alvin Kalicharran, Al Hamilton, Sted Wallen but to name a few all moved in the same circle as my father and have all spent their lives contributing to their community doing what they love most.
He was a great role model within the cricket community as well as in his job
There are a number of memorial matches being set up in his honour this year, Steve Stevenson in July in Bristol, Martin Couch (Surrey over 60s CC) 16 July at Spencer CC. He travelled annually to MC the Annual Malcolm Marshall Game in Birmingham for the last 7 years, as a tribute Sted Wallen is having a Tony Leslie X1 (Managed by Alvin Kalicharran former West Indies cricketer) vs a Sir Viv Richards X1 on Sunday 29th August in Birmingham, as part of Birmingham Annual Sport and Cultural Day. Every year he MC'd at the “Alex Tudor Fund-Raising Day” for Spencer CC in Wandsworth and entertained the crowd. He coached Bank of England Cricket Team (under 16s) and they send us a lovely Condolence book signed by the kids and their parents. I could go on but there are too many to list.
We need to hear more about local celebrities, we need to know more about inspirational role models to keep our community alive and help our youngsters realise what you can achieve in life if you just apply yourself and get the right backing. The kids need to get off the streets and back into their communities to find these role models.
Kindest regards
The Leslie family
Tony Leslie: Obituary outscores the Test Matches
Our obituary to Tony Leslie, who passed away last month, has set a record – even though we haven’t kept any specific statistics at such. It has attracted more hits than any other story, except for the occasional headline murder, than any other posted in our eight year history. That is a tribute to the popularity of the man and to the loyalty of his family and friends. Tony is already much missed, a fact that will become even clearer when the new cricket season dawns.
The interest shows up something else – the reason for the decline of the UK West Indian press. Tony Leslie was a community cricketer, a keen cricketer, but essentially a community cricketer: he did not adorn the national or the international game. Yet we have had more hits for his obituary for any report of a Test Match or profile of a first-class cricketer. The UK West Indian press has overlooked this sector at their peril, and, quite reasonably, have paid a heavy penalty for their arrogance and ignorance.
Over many years the late Connie Mark chided editors/managers of the Weekly Gleaner to fill their stories with the names of as many people as possible. People like seeing their name – and the names of their friends and colleagues - in the newspaper and will encourage their friends to go out and buy a copy. The more names that there are, the more copies that are sold. Al Hamilton and myself have urged the Weekly Gleaner / The Voice to concentrate more on sports personalities at a local level instead of perpetuating the obsession with “celebrity”. Their best features have indeed been on the stories nobody else has carried.
It stands to reason. Readers can find out all they want to know about the internationally-known “names” from the national press, from radio and from television. They do not need the rehashing of press release sent out to those same outlets, or interviews, which may or may not be exclusive, but inevitably go over the same ground which the interviewee has divulged elsewhere so many times. Where are the stars of tomorrow? Where are the stars of yesteryear? Who are the personalities whom the public know personally?
Tony Leslie didn’t make too many headlines while he was alive – though he was always there. He might have been surprised that his obituary has attracted many more hits than our report of the West Indians’ cricket match at Bristol last summer – the last occasion on which we met. It says something about the newspapers, and it says something, too, about West Indian cricket – by neglecting the community characters, the personalities around which the game is generated, they neglect themselves and their own true interests.
Clayton Goodwin 20th February 2010
Tony Leslie
Tony Leslie passes away Tribute to backbone of cricket support
The passing of Tony Leslie provides an opportunity for us to pay tribute both to the man himself and to the dwindling number of stalwarts who have provided the backbone support for West Indian cricket in England. That is both for club cricket and a following for the West Indies regional teams on tour. The last time I spoke with Tony was at Bristol last summer for the one-day international match in which the West Indians surrendered supinely to England. It took much loyalty to support a side in such circumstances. It was impossible to miss Tony. Just short of average height, ebullient, with moustache and eye-glasses, he kept up a stream of advice and encouragement to the players “in the middle”. In club cricket he performed a range of roles from player, umpire, administrator and awards-dinner master-of-ceremonies. A few seasons ago I heard the man-on-the-loudspeaker at a charity game at Milton Keynes confuse Tony Leslie with Clive Lloyd. I am not quite certain how either of them achieved that. Tony managed to be involved and associated with the competing club activities organised by both Steve Stephenson and Frank David – though being Jamaican he gravitated more to the former. Frank, too, passed away a couple of years ago, and, already, I am feeling sorry for the players in any celestial cricket match who are being subjected to a non-ending (and in this case everlasting) delivery of advice from him and Tony on how they should be performing (smile). Fortunately we all know that the Almighty is a cricket fan even if He has given little evidence recently of being particularly a West Indies fan. The sun for West Indies cricket in England is setting. It may not have disappeared over the horizon completely yet, but the loss of Tony Leslie has taken it a further notch in this direction. He was a voice, if not the voice, of the Caribbean game, and remained a reminder of the vociferous and committed crowds which flocked to the matches played by the West Indians , especially on their “home” ground at the London Oval, in the 1970s and 1980s. He, also, gave a meagre attendance at a club game, whether at the North Middlesex ground in North London or not, the appearance of indeed being a crowd. For news of Tony Leslie’s passing CaribCommx is indebted to – as in so many things relating to West Indian cricket – Colin Pryce and to Michael Bacchus. In a more mundane aside, I remember that on my first visit to a Test Match in Barbados the sports editor of one of the main local newspapers kept calling me “Tony”. When I explained that it was not my name he said that as so many commentators on West Indies cricket were called Tony – Cozier, Becca etc – he felt safe in using that name to every-one. Perhaps if parents started calling their children Anthony again the former base of support may be re-built.
Clayton Goodwin 3rd February 2010
For tributes by family and friends of Tony Leslie please see:
