Where are the openers?

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1:00Music I'm Tiski Maroach and I listen to the Carbine Cricket podcast. Welcome to the Carbine Cricket podcast. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are watching in the world. My name is Santoki. One half of the Carbine Cricket podcast doing a rare solo edition for YouTube. We will man-class me in the comments saying, Santoki's money man, Santoki, listen, I'm out here dropping the YouTube episode. If you would like to support us on Patreon for as little as $2.2 English pounds a month, QR code in the top corner, give it a scan, support the movement, help us grow the Carbine Cricket podcast. If you can't do that, but you'd still like to support the movement, as you can see, what the ticker takes says below. Follow us on all social media, ex, Instagram, like, share, subscribe. You know, it doesn't cost you anything on the road to 18,000 on YouTube. Now, for those wondering where I've been for the last week or so, I've been across the country,

2:02you know, commentating for BBC on county cricket. It's been a long hard slog. I've been at the oval, for sorry, middle sex at lords, Essex at Chelmsford, and my voice is finished. Out here, so I find, you know what, before my voice disappears, let me jump on the car being quick-to-podcast quickly. I've also got my son sleeping upstairs, so if you hear me speaking a bit quieter, that's the reason, obviously, I'm not going to be wondering what I'm whispering out here, but you know what, for the love of West Indies, for the love of the Carbine Cricket podcast, I'm out here, despite all of that giving you that content. So if that's not worth a like, share, subscribe, and don't know what it is. So what I'm focusing on today is the ODI series. I was going to, me and Mash were going to do an ODI series with you, however, the two ODIs following our lost to Shilanko in the first one were reigned off in Subar in the Park. That's not good news at all for West Indies fans. Essentially, we've lost to series one, Nil, to Shilanko, but more importantly, in the context of the World Cup, 2027, for me, I think we're done and dusted. I think

3:04that's it. We're in the qualifiers. Get ready. Wherever they play the qualifiers, I think it might be zimbabwe next year. We're in there because Bangladesh beat Australia today, for the first time in 21 years, coming up clutch when it matters, and that follows on their ODI series when it gets Mac Pakistan a few months ago. So last I saw, I don't know how the ODI rankings work in terms of exact points, but we were 11 points behind Bangladesh. We've lost the series now, which was the series there for the taking if we played all three games against Shilanko. We lost that one, Nil. That's out of the way. And coupled with Bangladesh's improvement in the ODI format, I think it's done and dusted that we'd have to win all our ODI series, which is five against New Zealand, three away against India, and three at home against Afghanistan. We'd have to win all 11 and played at Bangladesh lost most of theirs, which I don't think is going to happen. So from my perspective, while we're probably not mathematically out, we're basically, we're as good as out, like we're in the World Cup qualifiers. So the good news is though that the four teams go through the qualifiers. So hopefully we can finally make our ODI World Cup. We haven't been in once since

4:052019. So hopefully we'll be here in South Africa. And what I want to focus on is it's an interesting topic is the opener conundrum. So at the moment against New Zealand, we played a John Campbell and a Keemorg Auguste. Again, it seemed like a makeshift, it seemed like a makeshift pair in, however, they were both picked in the squad for the Shilanko series. And when we en-matched the preview episode about the Shilanko series, we said they were the only two openers in the side unless there was something, Sammy was trying something a bit different now. Technically, they weren't there on New York and adjusting grades, who's open before in ODI cricket. I think it's against Ireland many years ago, um, had a down bad series. Sammy's promoted him up to the order for John Campbell in the first ODI against Shilanko. Now, where do we start here? So I mean, for me, my perspective is John Campbell. Obviously he got that record stand with Shay Hope. What was it? They put on 365 against Ireland in 2019. So he's someone who's kind of proving himself in ODI cricket at the beginning.

5:09But for me, in 2026, Campbell's at best a Red Bull opener. He's not a White Bull 50 over opener. And with adjusting grades, I know Justin Grayson, the decent performance in the first ODI, I'm not sure if Sammy's thinking Keemorg East and John Campbell is my long-term kind of open-in pair, or if Justin Grayson and Campbell's where he wants to go, we won't know because we only played one ODI, but either way, any of those combinations, if you're thinking in the cricket West Indies personally, they said this was the road to 2027. So this is like, this is the locking, the final stretch to the ODI World Cup. That's why I had my, I'd been reintegrated, been called back for the third ODI, which never took place. You'd imagine he would have been in the 11 as well. But I just think, I just think like looking at that, that pairing, whether you have a Keemorg East as a talented young man, I think he could, has the potential to be a good White Bull player, but John Campbell and Justin Grayson, I just can't see up them being, for the next 18 months, are they going to sort of lead lead our ODI side? So that led me to just think like, in terms of openers, why are we so,

6:13why are we so down bad at it in West Indies? And the thing is, it's anyway going to be a class out of the comment generation because essentially, boy, if you're looking at maybe the last 20 years, you know, our ODI hopes in terms of openers have basically all been pinned on Chris Gale. Chris Gale was there 2004 Champions trophy opened in that tournament. He got us, he played in the final, obviously he didn't score big in the final, but he was there. And then pretty much from 2004 to 2019 bar in two or three years where he wasn't in the side for his own personal reasons, choices. Chris Gale was essentially led from the front in terms of ODI openers. And the problem is, we haven't been able to replicate anyone nearly as good as Chris Gale in ODI cricket as an opener until Shay Hope. Now, that's going to be something I get onto. But if you're looking at sort of in terms of an explosive opener, Chris Gale set the pace. And the thing is with ODI cricket, for me, we had Dwayne Smith who averaged 18 after playing 100 ODIs at Mania's and Opener, which is mad to me. But up until I know 2011, we had a down bad knockout against

7:20Pakistan in the quarter finals. For me, ODI cricket changed around 2015, you know, when England came out and they started playing this attacking brand of cricket. Other sides, follow 2015 was when we saw Divilias hit that 150 or 47 bulls and I think 2015 onwards is when we saw ODI cricket accelerate to becoming more like a longer form of T20 cricket. Before them, it'd been an extension of test cricket. You put your kind of red bull players in and you score a slightly higher rate. 2015 is when it completely changed into like what we've seen where it's sides putting up 350, 400 regular in the case of England and India, you know, going past that. So for me, ODI cricket changed and West Indies haven't been able to produce any betters to catch up with that change other than a Shay Hope. Now, so Chris Gale 2015 obviously was at the World Cup and then after that, you know, he kind of, he kind of went off, went off for a bit. I think after the World Cup maybe personal break, but he played fan tries, cricket a lot. And what was telling was, I'm just looking at the list now after 2015, we tried a madness of Openers Chadwick Walton,

8:26Andre Fletcher. And then the pinnacle was, I think March 2017, against England, we tried Craig Braffway and Kevin Powell alongside Emma Lewis each in the series against England. That kind of showed you the lack of what other teams were going crazy like Rohit Sharma, David Warren, etc, etc. As ODI Openers, we were out here with Craig Braffway and and Kevin Powell as trying out as openers who all day good back as I hunt home for their explosive batting. And that kind of showed you how far we dropped off in ODI cricket. And essentially, whoa, what it boils down to is how will we, how in Western these can we produce Openers and the big, the big issue is when we do have an opener, it kind of, we kind of are our own worst enemy. So, I mean, the closest we've had I mentioned Shay Hope, Shay Hope initially kind of came through around that time 2017 as well 2018 as an opener. And he formed the, he formed a good partnership with Evan Lewis. And so those two for me are the closest we can have to like a, a Chris Gale type of opener.

9:31For me, a good opener is someone who takes on a new ball in the power play and really sets down the foundation, helps the side get towards a hundred and ten overs, that kind of opener. So, I'm going to take the game away from the bowlers and has that explosive ability. Now, this goes back to, just John Campbell have the ability to do that. Just Justin Grayson have the ability to do that. For me, they're, they're more openers that you'd see in the 90s or early 2000s, you know, they're to use the power play to kind of get themselves in, layer foundation for lower down the order to come in and attack. And I just don't think that's the right strategy. I think if, if ideally an OGI cricket now you come out with an explosive open up or even too explosive openers as we saw in between parts of 2017, 2018, the early stage of 2019 will cut Gale and Lewis. One or the other would always bang this way. They never sort of work together in terms of putting these scores very rarely. But like when Lewis hit 176 at the overall or Gale hit a, essentially was it was it Barbados or the Caribbean in 2019 just before the World Cup against England. They had the capabilities to just go off from one and score big. And I don't think we've

10:34been able to replicate that. And Johnson Charles as well as kind of kind of come up but never, T20 cricket he's been around but OGI cricket he's never really sort of been able to get to get to that level. So for me, the question is do we stick with with a Campbell and Justin Reyes as our openness? Do we go with the Keymour Geese or Keymour Geese is a young potential battle? The 2027 World Cup only on what is it 16 months 18 months away? No, not even that September 27. So about 15 months away, do we really go with 22 year old a Keymour Geese based on his potential as an explosive opener? And it's not even about down to age because you can be 22 and have played a lot of cricket if you're from England or Australia or India. I'm just looking at what Keymour Geese's record like how many ODIs has even played? Played four ODIs and 90, 20 internationals who played 28 list day matches in his career, a lot of them for the West Indies Academy. So do we essentially say within the next 15 months

11:37we're back in a Keymour Geese to be that explosive opener? I think in five years a Keymour Geese can have that potential but now is he that guy? And if not, I'll be going with Justin Grace or or John Campbell as I open in pairs. So this is what I wanted to get to debate on. Who's basically going to open at the 2027 World Cup? We have a few options. So the first one is Shea Hut. Shea Hut that's up for. Do we move him up to open? Are you know, he's had he's had centuries as an open up, particularly with every Lewis as his partner, he's managed his school centuries in India, etc, etc. Do we move Shea Hut back up to the top and say look here's a man who is Avergen over 50 played over 150 ODIs, Avergen 50 and this day and age considering how down bad West Indies have been, that's that's Gary Sober's got through the Sober's numbers out here. So do we go with hope and say look the way you're playing and the way you can navigate 50 over cricket you move up to the top. I don't think we should do that. I think Hocus has said like his preferred spot is

12:40at number four and if a man scored 50 Avergen 50 and a form holds his in 19 centuries, you don't try and change or it's not broken. So I think you keep hope at four but then that means who do we put as as our open up? So this was an interesting one. Never thought of until mash mentioned it in the preview. Do we go with Hepmaier King Hetty at the top of the order? He's as explosive and open up as you can get. Do we go with King Hetty at the top and just say you know what Hetty let loose. Now my only issues with that is Hepmaier in the last three years hasn't played many ODIs obviously. He was away from from the ODI cricket for a while. He's only really, he hasn't played he hasn't played the ODI since the England series last year. So in 50 or over format he's not as confident obviously in T20 cricket we see what we saw what he could do at number three in the international side. I asked to do a job at number three and he managed to excel in it. Can you do the same in ODI cricket? Is that something they tried to know? We never got to know. We never got to

13:41see yesterday. I'm in the third ODI. My gut instinct is the logical thing that they're going to do is put Hepmaier at three. His stronger position, what he done well for in the World Cup. Put him in that three, hope coming in at four. I wouldn't be too too unhappy with that. It's both playing to their strengths positions that they prefer to play him. However, that still leaves the opening, the opening is but it's all good having that firepower at three and four. But as an opener, our Campbell and Graves going to be effective as a Keemog use going to be effective. So who can we have as an opener? So I don't think we're going to hope it's an option. I don't think we're going to go with that. Hepmaier, another option. That's a wild card option. I don't think we're going to go with that. Now the only, I'm looking at super 50 as well. The problem is we, because super 50 was so down bad, the two top scorers were Karl Meyers and Tion Webster who were both openers, but they only played, I think Meyers played three innings, Webster played maybe four, because super 50 was short and then so many matches were rein-affected. You can't really use that as you would like as 50

14:43over domestic tournaments. Say, okay, cool. These guys showed potential because it wasn't enough, it wasn't enough games. Every game day you show up for your team. Now it's your time. Ask your prescriber about Wigovie, some Maglatide injection 2.4 milligrams, a GLP one. Call 1-8-3-3-4 Wigovie or visit Wigovie.com to view the Medication Guide and to learn more about Wigovie. Why wait? For me, if I was cricket West Indies, I would look to try and get a super 50 ASAP. I mean, when's it due to be played November? You got five months. I would do one, a short and one in

15:44November and then another short and one in April or maybe for the World Cup qualifiers, just to get players as much domestic cricket as you can 50 over domestic cricket and see if we can find anyone. Is there a youth man that can get picked that somehow comes up and we go from there? That's one option we can do. I don't think it will happen because of finances. I think we'll have a short and super 50 again in November and that will be it. So if you're looking at the cohort of players, Karl Mayers has been tried out, Brandon Kings been tried out, both been dropped. I don't think Karl Mayers will see him in West Indies colors again anytime soon. Doesn't seem to be favoured under the current regime. Brandon Kings been dropped obviously. I'm just trying to look at what the West, Brandon Kings even owed the I record, but Brandon Kings been dropped. But again, he had a down bad, he had one half century in his last 10 ODI it is. So again, he used someone who's out of form, averages 27 in the format, which isn't horrendous, but is his recent performances enough to kind of warrant a recall. We don't know. And is Brandon Kings someone who can

16:49be explosive in the first 10 overs? So again, what do we do? And I want to say, kind of the best open up we've had since Chris Gell or alongside his Gell has been Evan Lewis. Just looking at kind of his numbers and he averages 37, which isn't far off what Chris Gell does as a strike rate of over 80 and ODI cricket. He scored what is it? So Evan Lewis again is a funny one because 2020 he scored a century in a 99 against Ireland, failed a fitness test. So Mr. Schelanca series came back in 2021 partnered really well with with with Shay Hope. Again, I forgot who I'll get Schelanca we beat Schelanca 3 now. And it was Lewis and Hope at the top of the order. And then Lewis just disappeared after the Australia series for three years for MoDI cricket. That was a massive blow for us, losing Lewis for three years. And then when he did come back, ironically in was it against Schelanca, he scored a century and then he scored a nightly something in

17:49England. So in his first two ODIs, back he got sentry in the nightly. For I think it was against England. And that showed you, Emma Lewis's quality and then he kind of injuries lost form, wasn't picked to get no of the eyes. And now it seems he's retired for me. If Evan Lewis is someone who you know, we didn't make the most of, I know he's kind of had injuries and personal issues, like said, failed a fitness test. But he's someone who in ODI cricket could have done a lot more. He only played 70 ODIs. And that's spanning, of course, nearly 10 years of 10 years of playing ODI cricket. He only played 70. He partnered well with Gail partnered well with Hope. If someone as we definitely know is an explosive batter. So Evan Lewis is someone who you know, I think there's no, I don't know he's going to get a vehicle, but he would be someone in that mold who you look for to be an opener in today's ODI cricket. It's interesting, obviously with West Indies, when Chris Gail kind of took hiatus. And even when he came back, we went, what, 2015 from the World Cup 2015 to when we beat Afghanistan in 2019, that was that we went four years without winning the ODI

18:54bilateral series. So that shows you kind of how, yeah, I was saying sorry, my wife, I cut off out of here, done bad, so I backed him. I was saying in 2019, when we won our first ODI series after four years against Afghanistan, it was Lewis and Hope at the top of the order. I think Hope hit a century in one of those matches as well. So Lewis and Hope kind of got us back on a winning track and then Lewis went, went off for a while for three years and we never saw him again. So that kind of ODI resurgence we had in 2020 and 2021, Hope and Lewis went at the top of the order now. Is that something Sammy's going to go back to? Is Sammy going to go, you know what? With that bad, we need to just get, we need to cool Lewis back, need to get Hope move high properly order. It's dramatic, I don't think it's going to happen, but that's essentially in the last 10 years since 2015 World Cup. And since I said ODI cricket has dramatically changed, that period of 2020, 2021 was one point where we kind of had a noteworth trajectory and those two were open. There's obviously in recent years we tried out Mayors, Hope continues for a while,

19:56we've had King, we've had Alec Afernais, Sonora Ambriss as well as Chokten, short Chandrapple Emerge even at one point, but we haven't been able to get sort of sustained success. So my question is for you guys watching, I want to, this is going to be an interactive episode in terms of the comments that we can kind of go back to it later on. Who do you think should open? If there's 2027 World Cup in South Africa, who would you like to see come out to open in the first game? Because for me, I'll have no confidence if it's John Campbell and Justin Graves, unless the team or Geese can perform in recent matches, etc. coming up to the World Cup. I don't think, or Geese has enough experience to kind of lead as that frontline attacking player as an opener. And I don't think I'm just in Graves again, Justin Graves and me is like an all rounder who should back lower down the order. So again, who are we going with? Because if you link about it, like even our recent ODI one, when, who did we beat? We beat Paki Starn

20:59last year except Lewis Open there with King, like a lot of our, a lot of our resurgence in terms of wins in the last four or five years have been with Lewis at the top of the order. And so we haven't been able to replace him. Again, do you think we should recall Lewis? Do you think Lewis kind of, especially since he won the first class tournament with Chin down to Beko? Do you think Lewis is someone who, you know, is worth a record of form he's in? And what he has proven himself to do in ODI, I click it, even that England series did we win? England in 2024, it was Lewis and King that Open. So Lewis again has been kind of around whenever we won series in the last five years has been with Lewis or Hopers on Open. Also, that's essentially our last 10 years has been our only sort of sustained success. So what do we do? Who do we call up on? We haven't got a domestic tournament, along with domestic tournament or high quality ones to say, all right, these guys don't well in Super 50. We're losing out on fan chives cricket in terms of players playing in fan chives tournaments. There's no sort of MVP, so we can call on who've been like,

22:02okay, cool. You're doing well into 20 cricket. Let's move you into the 50 over four man. The Sammy maker SOS called Nicholas Borer as a boy and look open for us are big. What's going to happen? Where do you think we're going? Because I just think commonly our ODI game is so stagnated with so behind other sides in terms of being able to put together massive scores, which you will need in South Africa. And that's partly down to the inability to have an explosive opening pair. So I thought I'd just do an episode to kind of talk about our modern history of ODIs. And then basically how we essentially ascended on Gell. Gell's been so dominant in ODI cricket. We kind of took it for granted. And we haven't been able to replicate it. We've had Open Lewis come through, but for various reasons as I've explained there no longer, they're two openers and we've kind of got no one. We've got no depth. And I think it kind of shows you our lack of depth. The fact that in the 2019 World Cup when Lewis got injured, I think we called up Sunwoo Ambrus to open with Gell, which kind of shows you the drop off in depth with Sunwoo Ambrus. I'd consider more as a Red Bull

23:03cricket of over there. I like for like replacement for Evan Lewis. So we're out here. We got the 5 ODIs against New Zealand. That will tell us a lot of 5 homo DIs. If it goes with Campbell and Graves for like at least three of them, that means that that's to Sammy Swinken to lock in for our World Cup. Is he going to be a King or Geestin and was Graves just just a makeshift opener for that one ODI against Sri Lanka? They'll be time will tell. We'll have a lot to see. So as always, comment below who do you think should open for West Indies in the 2020 Summer World Cup? Is that the name I've missed? You think you know what? We can do it. Do you think he should come up as an opener? I love to hear your opinions because I don't have an idea at the moment. Do you think we should recall Evan Lewis? Do you think hope should be moved up? There's a few options, but what do you think we should go up this? So as always, I said quick, quick episode. Therefore, I would jump on as always like comment, share, subscribe, or an all social media platform. Me and Matt will be back probably in the next 48 hours to look to preview the T20 series. Obviously, West Indies are free T20s against the

24:05Bina Park. T20s don't have as much context as the ODIs and then obviously the big big test series will do a lot of content around that, which would be on the Patreon. So Matt and Amanda will cost me for that, but you know how we go. Anyway, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you're watching the world. I've been Stokey. There's been another episode of Countings with the BootsCuff. Every game day you show up for your team. Now it's your time. Ask your prescriber about We GoVee, some Maglatide injection 2.4 milligrams, a GLP one. Call 1-8-334 We GoVee or visit We GoVee.com to view the Medication Guide and to learn more about We GoVee. Why wait? This episode is brought to you by State Farm. No two football players are exactly alike,

25:10and the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gifts to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.