On the surface a West Indies win over England in a cricket test match here on February 9 should have been neither surprising nor especially significant. It was, it's true, a fascinating contest and it's always satisfying to put down the old foe, the old colonial masters.
Yet West Indies cricket, an integral part of the culture of the people on these tiny dots, formerly shown on the map in British Imperial red, is in a parlous state. Its popularity is being challenged by other, faster sports, by changing lifestyles and by influence of the omnipresent satellite television. Its strength has been undermined by the insularity that has scuppered every attempt at political unity, and its team no longer dominates the world game as it did in the 1980s and 1990s when the West Indies went 15 years without losing a single test series. Prior to the Trinidad match the test side had been thrashed in all three tests in Pakistan late last year
Off the field, events were correspondingly depressing. There were sharp, insular divisions over the choice of a captain within the West Indies Cricket Board, the organisation charged with administering the game at regional and international level, and the acute embarrassment of the unprecedented abandonment of the first test in Jamaica because the pitch was so improperly prepared it was too dangerous for play to continue.
The proud reputation of West Indies cricket was being rapidly undermined. It was becoming a laughing stock. It was badly in need of something positive, anything, even a hard fought win over England in a solitary test. Don't get me wrong, cricket remains a powerful force here. It's still a passion rather than a pastime. Nothing evokes more vehement argument at the clubs and the bars and on the many radio call-in programmes. The players are heroes who are bestowed the highest national honours, and have town squares and highways and sports centres named after them. There is no more popular personality in his native Trinidad and Tobago than the new West Indies captain, Brian Lara, holder of the world record scores in both test and first class cricket.
While most efforts at political and economic unity have failed completely or continue to falter, cricket has survived as a unique West Indian entity for close to a hundred years. But the signs are all around that its position is weakening, that fewer boys are playing it and that public interest is not as intense as it used to be. For the first time since it was initiated in 1966, the annual first-class tournament between the territories has failed to find a sponsor. In Barbados, where cricket's influence is stronger than anywhere else, one of the island's internationally-renowned rum producers has withdrawn sponsorship of a club tournament. In the Windward Islands, the one-day competition this season had to be abandoned because they couldn't find a company willing to back it. Now the sponsors and the boys who would have taken up cricket as a matter of course are turning to other sports.
When I was at the Lodge School in Barbados in the 1950s, we played cricket for two of the terms, soccer for the other and had some track and field in between, that was it. Now the sporting curriculum has broadened to include basketball, volleyball, hockey, tennis and squash, all of which are less expensive, less time-consuming than cricket. Schools have gone co-educational and the boys tend to play sports the girls watch and not many are attracted to cricket. And of course videos, computer games and discos weren't there to distract the cricketing greats of the past like George Headley, Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Gary Sobers and even those of more recent vintage such as Viv Richards and Michael Holding.
While the several television channels now readily available in all the islands feed non-stop images of the expertly-hyped American champions and the overpriced footballers onto our screens 24-hours a day, there is little cricket. There was no coverage, for instance, of the West Indies series in Pakistan and none of inter-territorial matches.
As the fortunes of the West Indies cricket team have faded, so have they risen for Jamaica's footballers, the so-called Reggae Boys, who have become the first team from the English-speaking Caribbean to qualify for the World Cup Finals. There is no unified West Indies team in football or in any other sport, except cricket, but Jamaica's achievement has caught the imagination of the entire region all the same.
On the same day as the first test at Kingston's Sabina Park began and as it turned out also ended, Jamaica were playing a football international against Sweden a few hours later at the nearby national stadium. As recently as 10 years ago, the football organisers would have been daft to have scheduled such a clash. Now there were no more than 5,000 spectators at the cricket, near to 20,000 at the football.
For too long cricket has taken things for granted, now it has begun to fight back. The West Indies board is organising more coaching programmes and tours for age group and reserve teams. Governments have joined to boost the programmes at primary school level, but nothing will rekindle its popularity like success on the field of play which makes the current series against England so critical. But I for one certainly don't expect it to regain the sanctified status it enjoyed when I was a boy.
England beat West Indies
(17 Feb 98 | Sport)
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