Legendary match gave the world of cricket two West Indian heroes to celebrate

These letters appear in the 5 April digital edition of The Independent

Carlos Braithwaite playing for the West Indies. (GETTY IMAGES)

Needing 19 runs to win the World T20 Cup, Carlos Braithwaite announced himself as the “next big thing” in the world of cricket. The chances of him making a fortune from Big Bash and IPL will have risen 20 fold. His amazing last over heroics, where he hit four consecutive sixes, and his safe catching earned the Windies men their second ever World T20 title, making them the only nation to win it twice. Earlier in the day, the Windies Women’s team broke Aussie hearts by powering past the Aussie gals bowling for a seven wicket win, thus making the Windies day complete.

All Carlos Braithwaite managed to do was to hit the first four balls of the heart broken Ben Stokes final over for sixes for the West Indies to show they are still a great cricketing nation in a game which has more world wide appeal than either Tests or 50 over games.

In the most popular form of cricket the world has ever seen, a form which transcends all barriers, the West Indies returned to their halcyon days of the seventies, eighties and nineties through a giant of a man called Carlos Braithwaite, a modern day Joel Garner with the ball and a Viv Richards with the bat. The other Windies hero was Marlon Samuels, the contrarian stroke-maker who seems to have enemies in every opposing world class team and in several world renowned commentators too. Samuels was the rock on which the Windies forged their comeback, after a horror start from batsmen who should know better.

It was like Goliath slaying David. Tiny little freckled English men, by comparison, bowing to the might of a colossus. Cricket has two phenomenal West Indian heroes to celebrate today – and I, for one, do not care if either play 50 over cricket or Test cricket. What they gave the world was an insight into the greatest summer sporting entertainment on the planet. That is quite enough for me. And I suspect that viewers in Europe, Russia, China and the Americas will be thinking exactly the same way.

Arthur Pagonis
Morley, Western Australia

I have been an England cricket fan all my life, but I have to say that part of me was pleased that the talented but egregious Ben Stokes had his comeuppance. Some of us have still not got over his disgraceful sledging of the brave, inexperienced and extraordinarily diminutive Temba Bavuma. It brought shame on Britain. So yesterday, in the final over of a game he spent sledging West Indians, some of us were thankful the West Indies did not need 36 off the last over, because they would have got them, as Stokes had collapsed mentally. He wanted the glory. He got exactly what he deserved. Wondrous karma.

Dai Woosnam
Grimsby

Hold your nose and vote for Europe, for the sake of your children

I hope the present “inners” in the Cabinet resign en masse and leave it to the motley “out” crew, the majority of whom have not even held high office, to go with the begging bowl to an understandably resentful EU. Our lot will soon learn what an appalling mess they have made, as the EU politicians give them short shrift and have Mr Gove et al for their Elevenses. But it need not be so.

To those “outers” among my fellow baby-boomers, consider the advantages we have enjoyed, provided by our forebears fighting for us in a Europe so very different from the present. Our selfishness and greed has denied those advantages to our children. The EU referendum is not about us but our successors, the considerable majority of whom want to stay in but many of whom may even be too young to vote, so please perform just one redeeming selfless act before you die.

It may well stick in the throat, but close your eyes, hold your nose and think of them. Vote to stay in so that you at least give them the life they want.

Christopher Yaxley
Shrewsbury

In 1960, the Lord Chancellor Lord Kilmuir wrote to Edward Heath advising him that, if Britain joined the European Economic Community, it would be contrary to English Constitutional Law. Heath went ahead anyway and in 1972 signed the European Communities Act (ECA) in full knowledge that he was treasonably committing Britain to foreign rule over the heads of the people whom he had deceived with lies that no sovereignty would be lost.

His signing the ECA was the most grievous act of high treason in British history. But it also rendered his government an unlawful assembly with no effect in law (as treason can have no effect in law) and, as all subsequent parliaments have failed to reverse his treachery, they too have been unlawful assemblies having no legislative power, incapable of any lawful act of government.

Successive EU Treaties are therefore of no effect and Britain’s “membership” of the EU has been null and void from the outset. The possibility of bringing this momentous issue sufficiently to the public’s attention rests entirely upon the willingness of the press to publish it when the people have a right to know of such a serious matter effecting their lives but which has so far been withheld from them.

Rex Poulton
Wilton

The EU, through its Common Agricultural Policy, has tended to encourage giant farms. When we leave the EU, our government will have the freedom and means, both political and financial, to support all of our farmers. If evidence be needed, both Norway and Switzerland, as non-EU members, are currently able to spend a great deal more per hectare on making their agriculture fully functional.

June Warner
Wetherby

The Mossack Fonseca leak might be just the thing to prevent Brexit. If David Cameron can persuade the EU members to swiftly agree an approach to make the most of these leaked files, it could go a long way to demonstrating that collaboration is better than self-imposed isolation.

Patrick Cosgrove
Bucknell, Shropshire

Would a Brexit get us out of Eurovision?

Dr John Doherty
Stratford-upon-Avon

Russia's show of strength may expose a weakness

The answer to Robert Fisk’s article (“Why is David Cameron so silent on the recapture of Palmyra from the clutches of Isis”, March 27) is quite clear: he thinks that the town now is in the clutches of Messrs Putin and Assad.

Does he think it got out of the pan into the fire? Not exactly, as people are no longer beheaded and buildings blown up there. And yet your Prime Minister is florid with sizzling indignation as it’s not the West that’s reaping its laurels there, it’s Russia – a country described by President Obama as a “regional power” and whose actions in Ukraine are an expressions of weakness rather than strength.

If you talk the talk but don’t walk the walk it’s better to keep silent under the circumstances.

Mergen Mongush
Moscow

London's air quality requires closer inspection

Over the past month Barnet Green Party has been monitoring air pollution around the Borough using N02 diffusion tubes. Out of 24 tubes put up, 11 had readings were above the EU legal limit of 40 µg/m, at sites across the whole borough. Worrying are the number of schools over the EU limit, especially alarming as nitrogen dioxide can reduce lung growth in young children by 10 per cent. In the lungs, nitrogen dioxide combines with water to produce nitric acid. This is storing up epidemics of lung diseases for the future. These findings are merely indications of unacceptable levels of air pollution, and more monitoring is urgently needed. It is scandalous that in a borough such as Barnet, which is intersected by the M1, the A1000 and the A406, that only two official monitoring stations exist. The Royal College of Physicians recently published a study on the effects of air pollution. According to this report, air pollution has been “linked to cancer, asthma, stroke and heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and changers linked to dementia”. Every year 9, 500 Londoners die from the effects of air pollution. Imagine what would happen if 9, 500 a year were killed in terrorist attacks!

Phil Fletcher
Barnet Green Party

It's time for a referendum for Northern Ireland

In recent times we have witnessed a Referendum in Scotland on independence and the people of the United Kingdom will vote in a Referendum on 23 June 2016 to decide if the UK remains in the European Union. These votes are based on the idea that major decisions on topics which effect everyday life in these nations should be put before the people, for society to decide how we collectively move forward together.

With this in mind I am calling on the Secretary of State Theresa Villiers to offer the people of Northern Ireland a chance to vote on a subject that causes division is oft times fraught with danger occasional violence and undermines efforts to normalise society. I am of course referring to the thousands of parades and marches we must endure annually and the attendant price of policing, that wastes must needed monies which should be spent on hospitals education welfare and housing.

I am asking the Secretary of State to call a referendum and allow the people to decide if parades and marching should be banned for a period of five years. This would be reviewed and another referendum held in five years’ time should the people endorse the call for a ban. It is an opportunity to allow society to heal, a breathing space to allow discourse and a chance for peace and normality during the summer months, to ease inter-communal tensions and help peace solidify.

Let the people decide. It’s our lives, our children’s futures’ and our fundamental right.

Francis Hughes
Belfast

Death notices

After many months of self-imposed purdah, I understand that it is again safe to listen to the everyday story of country folk. I won’t of course believe these rumours until I read Rob Titchener’s obituary in your wonderful paper.

Peter Bayliss
Staylittle, Powys

Has The Independent going online granted eternal life to the whole wide world? Where are the obituaries? They used to be the first item I turned to.

I need to see who I am out-living. All of a sudden I feel horribly mortal.

Peter Forster
London, N4