West Indies cricketers need to show a bit more determination and maturity – Clyde Butts, chairman of selectors.
WEST INDIES CRICKET has been in the doldrums for sometime now. The pundits have brought all kinds of analysis to bear on the issue. The best cricketers have always been off the field. We keep harping back to the glory days of West Indies cricket when we were seemingly invincible.
We beat everyone with ease and flair and for decades; we had the patent for the winning formula. Those days are gone. We the fans of the game of glorious uncertainties have watched our boys on numerous occasions snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
It seems that we have got so accustomed to losing, that we have forgotten how to win.
In a recent discussion at the Errol Barrow Centre For Creative Imagination at the University of the West Indies, a number of very telling comments were made by people who themselves cannot claim any cricketing fame, except for Rawle Brancker whose cricketing exploits are well known. Chief among the commentators was the CEO of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), Dr Ernest Hilaire. He played some master strokes that have offended the West Indies Players Association which has demanded an apology.
World-beaters
The chief executive officer charged that the region was not producing world-beaters. He spoke to our team’s inconsistency in winning matches.
Lamenting that fans were saddened by the lack of performance, Dr Hilaire said we would not see any improvement before the next three years. He spoke to insularity and the fact that over the past nine years we had tried 59 players without any degree of success.
Speaking on the topic Nationalism And The Future Of West Indies Cricket, Dr Hilaire passed the buck from the level of management to the cricketers. In his assessment the problems went beyond the boundary of management.
The deadliest ball bowled by Dr Hilaire was his charge that the Windies team were the least educated of all the Test playing sides and that we had degenerated to the extent where we were not ranked in any areas of the game.
It is my assessment that the charge of our team being the least educated of all the Test playing sides calls for serious analysis. During the glory days of West Indies cricket there was no evidence that education was the formula that made us great.
Jokes
In our folklore, one of the greatest cricketers the world has ever known was the butt of many a joke told under many a breadfruit tree and over many a drink in boardrooms across Barbados.
I do not know if Sir Gary, the gentlemen that he has always been, has ever heard any of these jokes about himself.
The prodigy who made his debut at age 17, never went beyond Bay Street Boys’ School; yet he inspired almost poetic praise from writers, broadcasters and his peers.
On the other hand, did Wes Hall’s higher level of education equip him with the knowledge how to bowl a deadly bouncer, or how, as a tail-ender, to win a match in the glory days of West Indies cricket?
Education
The fact is that it was never about education. So what is the point Dr Hilaire is making?
If the CEO of the WICB were to peruse the biographical data files of the cricketing greats, I am sure he would conclude that the level of education is not the variable that explains the level of supremacy, which we achieved as a cricketing nation.
I strongly contend that if it were about formal education, the West Indies cricket team who dominated world cricket for over 30 years could never have done it. Sir Gary, one of the game’s most distinguished stars, might never have been described by C.L.R. James as “the superb product of the modern age”, or by historians Keith Sandiford and Ronnie Hughes as “the embodiment of cricketing excellence”.
The problem in West Indies cricket goes beyond the boundary of formal education or literacy. The cause for which the cricketing greats fought has long been won. Slavery has been abolished. The post-colonial and post independent eras are long gone.
Today’s West Indies team do not have a clue of the cause for which they play. It is just about winning! It is just about the money! There is no longer an international motive for West Indies to excel.
Without a cause that is rooted in our legacy of excellence, our cricket will continue to be seen by this current crop as “just a game”. The call for commitment, dedication and pride in our tradition of excellence will continue to be lost; and any attempt to intellectualise a solution will be a waste of time.
*Matthew D. Farley is an educator, secondary school principal, chairman of the National Forum on Education and a social commentator; email [email protected].
