Lendl Simmons retires from international cricket

[ShehryarK]

‘I am expressing myself with my bat’ - Simmons

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Bridgetown, Barbados – West Indies had the sweet taste of victory on Monday as they recorded their first win over Pakistan in the Digicel One Day International Series.

The triumph, by one run under the Duckworth Lewis Method, was achieved when Dwayne Bravo hit a massive six over midwicket to push the home side to 154-4 off 29.5 overs in the rain-affected 4th Digicel ODI at Kensington Oval.

Pakistan batted first and posted 248-9 off 50 overs thanks to a brilliant century from opener Mohammed Hafeez. The target was later adjusted to 223 off 39 overs under DL.

Pakistan lead the five-match series 3-1 with one game left in Guyana on Thursday.

The stars of the day for the Windies were leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo, who took 3-37 from 10 overs to continue his fine showing with the ball, and opener Lendl Simmons, with 76 from just 70 balls, to maintain his good run of form with the bat.

Speaking after the match, Simmons said he was thrilled with the victory and added he was enjoying his return to the international stage.

"This was a very good win for the team. We did really well and this win means a lot to the team. We played well today, we did not give up. We entered the day 3-0 down in the series and some people might have felt we would have given in, but we got a good start from the bowlers and as batsmen we knew we had to finish the job. Today, we were able to rotate the strike a lot more when we batted and that was very important," the 26-year-old right-hander said.

"I'm having a good series. My form started from back in the Caribbean T20 (in January) when I did well for Trinidad and Tobago and I have remained in a positive frame of mind. I'm feeling good when I go out to bat and I always back myself. I am expressing myself and getting positive results with the bat."

He is now looking to end the series with a century in the last match on Thursday at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence.

"I'm taking it step by step, day by day. I would like to get a 'big one' in the final match and help us to end the series 3-2," he said.

- WICB

 

[Amjid Javed]

Hes looked a better play since his return. More selective with his stroke play. Also with the W.I seniors sat out of the team its a chance for him to score runs and be the main batsmen in the side.

 

[ads101]

Probably should have got man of the match in the last match. Reason why west Indies won really.

 

[violet_may]

Hes looked a better play since his return. More selective with his stroke play. Also with the W.I seniors sat out of the team its a chance for him to score runs and be the main batsmen in the side.

holy crap! i just noticed you have almost 80k posts!!!! dang!

And Simmons is looking very solid. He is playing for the Test matches yes?

 

[Saj]

He's batted really well throughout the series, looks a much better player these days.

 

[Energy]

Has had a good series. The important thing would be to display the same level of form when India arrives as well.

 

[AZ]

Very heartening to see a young player from the Windies on the up rather than dwindling into obscurity.

Can surely build their batting around him, Darren and Sarwan.

 

[1137moiz]

Some lovely shots in that knock as well MashaAllah.

We know Simmons likes to pull but those two flicked sixes off the seamers over square leg were delicious to watch

 

[Zohaib Shah]

Hes a impressive Player that's for sure. For some odd reason has always been my favorite since he first came out cause he has a unique shaped head that's very skinny. Or should i say look. He Plays like a Nazir type innings but a bit more sensible. Reminds me of Hafeez because he cant play a long innings and make a hundred constantly. Would Love to see him play more and further cement his play in the West Indies team. I think West Indies would need a player like him to open with a guy like Gayle. Oh How dynamic would that partnership be. Just thinking about Him and Gayle opening and Destroying teams would be a dream come true for me. Cause these two are real Monsters!

 

[Poison]

Very good player. Unfortunately has the Hafeez disease regarding reaching milestones and then getting out

 

[1137moiz]

Hes a impressive Player that's for sure. For some odd reason has always been my favorite since he first came out cause he has a unique shaped head that's very skinny. Or should i say look. He Plays like a Nazir type innings but a bit more sensible. Reminds me of Hafeez because he cant play a long innings and make a hundred constantly. Would Love to see him play more and further cement his play in the West Indies team. I think West Indies would need a player like him to open with a guy like Gayle. Oh How dynamic would that partnership be. Just thinking about Him and Gayle opening and Destroying teams would be a dream come true for me. Cause these two are real Monsters!

I'm actually surprised at how cleanly he's struck the ball. He had a reputation as a bit of an Ian Bell-type pretty but ineffectual one-day batsman, but he's really had the bowlers/crowds ducking

 

[Saqs]

Throwback to the old Carribean style of play.

Pity he wasn't in the WC.

 

[Fireworks11]

He's had a good series thus far, certainly the lone ranger with the attacking blade for WI.

 

[Bhaijaan]

Doing great these days , got talent.

 

[Ashraful_Rox]

He's my third favorite west indian player after Darren Sammy and Andre Russell.

 

[Bhaijaan]

Not convinced by his technique but he is getting away with it

 

[Saqs]

6 fifties in the last 8 matches.

Pair him with C Gayle and you have one of the most promising opening combinations in a while.

 

[Bhaijaan]

One of the failures include a horrible decision , so doing quite good.

 

[Amjid Javed]

The Only decent Batsmen W.I currently have. Hes much improved player.

Rest of batsmen are seriously **** poor.

 

[CoolSERAZ]

lendl is in good nick. if only he starts getting 100s ...except against us

 

[Gabbar Singh]

5 years on and he really hasn't fulfilled his potential and at 31 he doesn't have a massive amount of time left. Players like Simmons are also battling the WICB so that doesn't help either.

The batsman talks about why he can't see a future for himself in the West Indies side as long as selection depends on playing domestic cricket

"The past is history." So proclaims Lendl Simmons' status on WhatsApp. It is the mantra of a man who wants to look forward in life, not moan.

Yet Simmons cannot help but feel aggrieved. He, like Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy, Dwayne Bravo and Andre Russell, was not considered eligible for selection in West Indies' ongoing ODI tri-series against Australia and South Africa. All those players did not play in this year's West Indies domestic 50-over tournament, instead playing in the Big Bash.

"It's just foolish," Simmons says. "We are available to play but we are not being picked. It's just a stupid rule that they have. Unless that rule changes, no one will play for the West Indies, because I don't think anyone is going to give up franchise cricket to play regional cricket when the fees are not suitable enough. A lot of other teams' players don't play in their domestic [competitions] but still play for their country. This is not the same for us, but such is life."

While wishing West Indies well, Simmons warns that "we could embarrass ourselves because Australia and South Africa are not coming here with their A teams. They are coming here with their full teams."

Simmons was gripped by anger two months ago as well. When he came out to bat in the semi-final of the World T20, with West Indies 19 for 2 after three overs, in pursuit of 193, Simmons was riled by Virat Kohli.

"When he fielded, he said something to me, and I said to myself, 'I'm going to show you you're not the only good batsman,'" Simmons says. He also reckons Kohli kept throwing the ball to his end to try and get under his skin. "That's the way he is. He's very arrogant, he's very aggressive when he fields, and when he bats as well. He's just a very aggressive person.

"Those things motivate our players and it certainly motivated me. That really urged me to bat the way I did - to show him that he's not the only one who can do it. That played a big role."

So too did simple fortune. Simmons was twice caught off a no-ball, and reprieved a third time when a catch off a legitimate delivery was overturned when Ravindra Jadeja was shown to be touching the boundary rope when he took it. "Every cricketer has his day and you just need to cash in when it is your day," Simmons says. "I took full opportunity of that to bat until the end. It was mind-blowing doing that with all those people supporting India and being very loud. It was the highlight of my career."

Kohli might have reflected on the impact of his words as Simmons thumped five sixes into the Wankhede, en route to a 51-ball 82 not out. "When India chase, one of their top batsmen bats deep - that was my role, batting in the middle overs, especially because I play spin well. I know they didn't have any good death bowlers, so with Russell, Bravo and Sammy to come once we passed the middle overs, those guys could always come out and finish."

It was left to Russell to score the winning runs, dispatching a full toss - from Kohli, of all people - into the Mumbai night sky. And when Carlos Braithwaite's four towering sixes clinched the final, Simmons had gone from watching the World T20 at home, having originally not been selected because he was not fully fit, to being a world champion in the space of a week.

It proved an expensive triumph. Simmons played at "85%" in the World T20, aggravating the problems with his lower back that had originally led him to miss the tournament. His back ultimately forced him to fly home after one IPL game. "But I think it was worth it - putting the West Indies back on the map by winning the World Cup again. It was a big achievement for the Caribbean. It meant a whole lot. We knew that everyone in the Caribbean was watching the final. We desperately needed that, because we know there's a lot of politics in cricket right now - a lot going against the players right now."

Simmons suggests that his cousin, West Indies' coach Phil, shares his frustration, "but there's not much he can do".

Having won two of the last three World T20 crowns - Simmons was not selected in 2012 - West Indies are shaping up as international cricket's first dominant T20 side. Bravo has even suggested they could be as successful in the format as the Test side was in the 1980s.

"It's calypso cricket," Simmons says of the West Indies' success. "It's because of the way we play our cricket - we are aggressive, very sprightly, and that's how we are. We're not good at Test cricket right now, but T20 is right up our alley."

Even a golden duck in the final could not dilute the memory of his innings, a distillation of the T20 qualities that have earned him attention from franchises the world over.

India has seen the best of him: Simmons has 1038 runs at 47.18 for Mumbai Indians. But he is also enthused about the Caribbean Premier League. It "pays well" and, for the first time ever, means leading players from foreign shores play domestic cricket in the West Indies, testing and improving Caribbean players without deals in other T20 leagues.

Simmons is unashamed about the path he has chosen. Injuries have rendered him unable to play Tests - he never even scored a half-century during an eight-match career that ended five years ago - and he has not played an ODI, or even a List A match, since the World Cup. That will not change until either he or the West Indies Cricket Board change their minds about playing in the Nagico Super50. Neither seems likely.

"Yes, I enjoy playing for Trinidad and I want to play for the West Indies, but people also have families that they need to feed and a life that they need to build," Simmons says. He will continue to be a flag bearer for the age of the itinerant T20 player - a sign of the things and, he reckons, a shape of the future of West Indies' best players too.

"Franchise cricket is a very good thing. People can travel around the world and play cricket. You get paid well for your services, and people want our services," he says.

"Franchise cricket is the avenue for players to earn a living. Not everyone gets retained for the West Indies, and anyway our retainer is not sufficient to say you can live off this for three to four years."

It was ever thus. West Indies have always relied on foreign leagues - traditionally county and club cricket in England - to fund their players. Garry Sobers once almost missed an international to play an English club match, because it was more lucrative. The T20 globetrotting of Simmons and Co is new. But it is also entirely in keeping with West Indies' past.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/1023229.html

 

[Varun]

Has had a lukewarm series and career overall.

Can he turn it around today?

 

[BoomBoomCricket]

9 years today Afridi's last ODI as full time captain, what a hammering https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...tan-5th-odi-pakistan-tour-of-west-indies-2011

 

[MenInG]

Lendl Simmons announced his retirement from international cricket on Friday by handing over a letter to the West Indies cricket board.

The Trinidadian cricketer played 68 ODI and T20 matches. It was in ODI cricket that the world got to see the best of him. He scored 1958 with two centuries and 15 half-centuries against his name and the highest score of 122. In T20 cricket, he amassed 1527 runs with nine fifties and a career strike rate of 120.80. He only played eight Test matches and scored 278 runs in total.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="zxx" dir="ltr"><a href="https://t.co/ORW4JXlKYN">pic.twitter.com/ORW4JXlKYN</a></p>— Lendl Simmons (@54simmo) <a href="https://twitter.com/54simmo/status/1549103996933214210?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 18, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[BunnyRabbit]

Predicted it during his last international innings in 2021 wt20.

WI t20i players are usually unavailable for most of the international assignments, don't know why they need to announce their international retirements.