Bitter-Sweet West Indies
For the past week and a bit, Caribbean cricket aficionados have been celebrating yet another defeat of England by the West Indies in the region.
Of course, with the pandemic having wrought havoc with the Caribbean economies and health situations, people dying apace and numerous experiences with lockdowns, the peoples of the Caribbean, much like elsewhere, have been under pressure with day-to-day living.
Some Caribbean governments, unable to manage the challenges, resorted to sheer draconian measures which they dictatorially imposed on their own people, showing their mighty power over the very electorates that put them in office.
Caribbean peoples grew wary of their respective political administrators, a phenomenon that rose above political loyalties when public servants were forced to vaccinate or be fired. For some political leaders this strategy may well have served their long-held personal desires for an excuse, however half-baked, to rid the service of their opponents. In the melee, many disposed of their own political supporters, much to their detriment.
Defeating England in the region
We must not in any demean the victory, albeit 1 – 0, against England in a test series.
Any victory over those who once colonised us and used our foreparents for their enrichment and personal aggrandisement for more than a century, is to be most welcomed.
The victory of the West Indies cricket team against England a few weeks ago lifted a very heavy burden off their shoulders. The euphoria that emerged following the West Indies victory was as much a relief from the several months of covid restrictions as it was a celebration that finally, the region’s cricket team retained its dominance in the sport brought to the region by its colonisers.
The crowd in Grenada warmed to the support of the region’s cricketers as they handed England an emphatic 10-wicket victory.
Grenada is one of the Caribbean’s sporting hotspots and delivered euphoric responses to every nail that the Caribbean athletes punched into the cricket coffin of the Englishmen.
Across the Caribbean, cricket aficionados exhaled. For a period at least, however brief, they all wanted to savour the sweet taste of victory.
While supporters of West Indies cricket remain apprehensive as to just how long will the team continue on a winning path, they were not prepared to allow this to deter them from the joys of the moment and its historic significance.
In the past 14 tests against each other in the Caribbean, the West Indies have won five test series as opposed to two earned by England.
Our male cricketers
The dominant days of Clive Lloyd’s West Indies cricket team that started with the Kerry Packer financial and technological experiment, the regional side maintained control of the game at the international level. At times, they humiliated teams by thrashing them inside three days in test matches.
For several years the West Indies cricket team, armed with four fast bowlers in any one match and outstanding batsmen, left their opponents in awe, fearful and definitely intimated.
Then came the slump. Decades later, we are still mired in the confusion attendant to the cesspool of grossly inept leadership, lack of pride and a seemingly annoying inability to engage in any sort of critical analysis on and off the field of play.
In the Caribbean, the failures of the team on the field have led to a significant decline in interest in the sport. Fans have left the sport.
The fact that the better players have been bought and sold like the African chattel slaves of old, is covered up by the millions that they earn for themselves. Unfortunately, for some, the millions earned have in no way impacted their mental faculties in respect of the significance of the sport to the historic experiences and aspirations of the peoples of the Caribbean.
The mouthing of some of our ‘better’ players continues to be an embarrassment to the sport and its immense potential for effecting positive change.
Lack of understanding of the game’s meaning for successive generations of our people has spawned generations of athletes whose only interest is the almighty dollar.
It is not surprising therefore that over the past several decades, critics have been forced to decry the often sickening performances of the key stakeholders in West Indies cricket and the seeming refusal to contemplate and buy into the positive values that are usually promoted as being attendant to sport. The sport is no longer seen in the region as playing the important role of aiding in the inculcation and sustainable development of character.
So it is that we now have athletes who have, in short order, become millionaires and for whom, the peoples of the Caribbean, the lovers of the sport, do not matter.
Our female cricketers
West Indies women’s cricket has been in formation for many years, making their first World Cup appearance in 1993.
Support waned considerably and at one point many thought that the experiment would simply not work. That was until Ann-Browne John joined Jean Camino in what turned out to be the sport’s triumphant revival in the Caribbean.
The West Indies Women’s Cricket Federation (WIWCF) sought to firmly establish itself under the leadership of Jean Camino of Trinidad and Tobago, with Ann-Browne John as the lead coach, in the early years of the new millennium and did well enough, organisationally, to be able to have a representative team from the region ventured into South Africa to contest the Women’s World Cup for the very first time. The experience was a learning curve from which there has been no turning back.
Over the next several years of negotiations, the International Cricket Council (ICC) officially acknowledged the importance of women to the sport and mandated its membership to incorporate existing women’s cricket organisations into their institution.
West Indian women cricketers eventually started on a path to professional development that lifted international respect for the players.
When, in 2016, the female team won the T20 World Cup title, it was a fantastic experience as they moved over to watch their male counterparts attain victory in the men’s version of the competition.
Over the years the women cricketers in the region have grown in their understanding and playing of the game. Stephanie Taylor, Deandra Dottin and Anisa Mohammed have distinguished themselves and are known and feared across the sport.
In the most recent One Day International World Cup in New Zealand however, the West Indies women conducted themselves much like their male counterparts, leaving the sport’s supporters very bewildered, pondering whether their approach to the game was influenced by some of the same cultural malaise that plagues their male counterparts in international competition.
The World Cup began with the West Indies upsetting the hosts, New Zealand, in a nail-biting encounter that saw them home by a four-run margin. Caribbean cricket fans were ecstatic and the international cricket community may well have thought something of a surprise packet.
In what was the seventh match of the tournament, West Indies handed defending Champions, England, a shocking defeat by seven runs. There was mayhem.
Three matches later, England exacted their revenge, handing the Caribbean women a 155-run defeat. The spell that once appeared to favour the West Indies had been broken and badly enough to have Australia, eventual winners, serve up a seven-wicket destruction of our women, four matches later.
Seemingly psychologically humiliated and lacking the earlier spirit on the field, the Caribbean women struggled to get past a relatively weak Bangladesh by a mere four runs. The match against South Africa washed out, and in the semi-final, lost to Australia.
There was disappointment all around. The team seem better prepared than ever before and the ‘magic’ start spurred the support back in the Caribbean, only to be shattered.
Bitter-Sweet West Indies
The abovementioned experiences of our men and women in international cricket competitions have become all too familiar.
There is a sense in which we are made to feel that not enough is being done to develop the players’ character. There is clear evidence that many of the current ‘better’ players have no sense of the history of the sport and of its special significance to the peoples of the Caribbean. This is unfortunate.
There is also a sense in which the fact of the growing professionalism of the sport must engage the players in a manner well beyond the impact on their personal bank accounts and the luxurious lifestyles that accrue therefrom.
Somehow, there is a strong disconnect between the current West Indies cricketers and those who have a sense of pride in their respective upbringing, communities, countries and self.
Money is known to change lives but unfortunately, such change is not always positive.
Many of our West Indian cricketers today lack any genuine commitment to anything beyond the money they now make and the materialism that has obviously consumed them.
It has become part of the culture of West Indies cricket today to accept mediocrity as satisfactory. It does not appear to bother anyone.
The determination to give the very of oneself each time a player takes to the field appears to have long been lost amongst our players and defeat brings neither shame nor motivation to do better.
For Caribbean sports fans there is much pain in every regional cricket team’s defeat. Each time this happens we are reminded of how we came to be playing this game and what we, of all participants, strive to better ourselves each time we take the field.
There is no evidence that many of the West Indies cricketers even care.
