There are no more audacious sixes over cover off the backfoot, no more scorching 'perfume balls' at batsmen's throats and no more chants of 'Knock-his-head-off-mickey' from spectators. The decline of West Indian Cricket is the greatest tragedy of modern day Cricket. The World of cricket is missing the West Indies - big time. The once triumphant Caribbean Kings who steam-rolled the best of sides are in danger of losing their Kingdom.
Cricket without the West Indies is like Football without Brazil - It simply isn't good to look at. When the West Indies played they reduced the game to what it was always meant to be - a game of supreme skill and ability. Hence this collective hurt felt around the cricketing world, for like Brazil the West Indians are the second favourite team of most cricket fans after their own teams. Their latest debacle - albeit as a second string team - to Bangladesh seems to indicate that the West Indians have reached their nadir. It cant get worse than this.However to find out the malaise infecting the West Indian team you have to delve into their past and understand their present.
Cricket came to the West Indies as a byproduct of English colonialism in the 19th century. It started out by being played by the black local 'slaves' in the sugarcane plantations owned by English masters. As opposed to other countries the West Indies were not a single nation, in fact it was a team made up of more than 10 individual nations. Each of these nations had and still continue to have distinct governments, currencies, passports etc. So the West Indies were a peculiar sporting team in this respect.
At the turn of the 20th century the West Indians had found their own style of play suiting their physical attributes of being strong and athletic. The batsman were generally hard hitting with a flair for the audacious and the bowlers had a knack of hurtling the ball at pace. The skills were there all right but needed refinement and was referred to condescendingly by the snobbish British as 'Calypso Cricket'. Basically meaning Cricket with only flair and no substance.
Also, at the time Cricket was still a white man's game and had a severe colonial tinge to it as was evident by the name of the presiding body - Imperial Cricket Council, which was a precursor of the current ICC. The West Indians were inducted as a test playing team but up until the 1950s were barred from having a black captain. Instead a white man was in charge irrespective of his playing ability.
What the above factors meant was the West Indies developed a post-colonial angst to prove the world a point that a black man can play a white man's game and beat him as well. Cricket became a part of every day West Indian life, be it in music, food or politics. Cricketers achieved the status far greater than Presidents or Prime ministers. The captain of the West Indies team was regarded almost as the President of whole of the Caribbean. Cricket in the Caribbean became a metaphor and a medium to break the colonial yoke.
This post-colonial angst was powering the West Indians to great heights and in the 50s the Empire struck back with a vengeance. The West Indians beat the English in England in 1950. With the emergence of players like Sobers, Worrel and Weekes the West Indies emerged as a leading test playing team. They played an entertaining brand of cricket but more importantly produced results. This was the tectonic shift in West Indian Cricket - Results with flair.
The passion to prove a point to the white world drove the West Indian team from strength to strength and eventually culminated in probably the greatest team ever assembled on a cricket pitch- the West Indian team of the 70s and 80s. The West Indian team almost carried a 'black man's burden' and represented black pride in the cricketing world. Every time the West Indian team beat the Englishmen a black worker slogging in the working class factories of England felt proud of himself, he walked at least a feet taller than his English employers. Such was the importance of Cricket for the West Indies. As the great West Indian cricket writer CLR James says in what should be the best sports book ever written and aptly named 'Beyond the Boundary' - 'What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?' Cricket in the West Indies couldn't have been explained better.
However with the coming of the 90s, the generation that harbored the post-colonial angst to succeed had slowly receded back and the newer generation that replaced them did not have any such angst and were comfortable with their black identity. They did not need the vehicle of Cricket to ride their ambitions. Newer, greener pastures were being opened closer home in the United States in the form of basketball and athletics and Cricket felt like a poor grandparent lying around in the house. Hence Cricket suffered and save for rare moments of glory inspired by Brian Lara or Walsh/Ambrose the Caribbean did not give the Cricketing world any reason to enjoy.
This is where things stand and it is really sad for lovers of the game. Still, whenever there is a rare moment of what could only be called 'West Indianism' like when Dwayne Smith flicks a ball over mid-wicket effortlessly for a six or when Fidel Edwards produces a toe-crushing yorker you remember the great West Indian teams of the past and their spectacular play.
Hopefully the West Indians can ignite their cricketing spark once again and find a new reason to play the game. If they do, the cricketing world will be the better for it. For no Cricket team on earth can entertain you as well as the West Indies.
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