Part I of a two-part column called Lead Us Not
In the run-up to the 1999 Cricket World Cup, which we hosted, Caribbean Beat magazine asked me to pick an all-time West Indies squad. Now, such knowledge as I have tricked editors into believing I possess about cricket doesn’t extend to field-placing or strategy. I carry no wealth of Test statistics in my head; nor even a poverty of same.
The little I know about West Indies cricket I have gained indirectly, by painfully-earned understanding of West Indians themselves. So I couldn’t say, for example, whether Ryan Hinds should be picked – but I can tell you what’ll happen in Barbados and Trinidad if he isn’t. (I could say, though, that Marlon Samuels shouldn’t be picked; but then, so could anyone, apart from our selectors.)
The West Indian territories are as bewildering as they are delightful. West Indians are a group of people with talent out of all proportion to our population sizes, but we are also a group of people singularly determined not to think for ourselves, no matter what the consequence.
We believe fervently, for example, in the same God who has permitted all the evil that has ever been done here, and in His name. We prefer to cling, as strongly as leeches (and with as much thought) to a pleasant fantasy than contemplate the harsh reality.
So we end up with no chance of overcoming our challenges because of our determination not to discern them. What racism? Look, an Indian prime minister! What inequality? Jesus will seat me at His right hand and cast the rich man into Hell. (Except, we’ll all be dead; if there is a God, He must get a real kick out of West Indians; especially Bajans.)
In 1999, I sidestepped naming the All-Time West Indies Squad myself by asking cricket writers around the world to help. Because I know Barbados a little, I know I have to name, today, the team I could not myself name in 1999 (or anything else I say will be ignored).
The consensus of opinions fielded from every part of the cricket world names the All-time West Indian Dream Team, in batting order, as: 1. Gordon Greenidge. 2. Conrad Hunte/ Roy Fredericks. 3. Viv Richards/ Everton Weekes. 4. Brian Lara/George Headley. 5. Frank Worrell (Captain)/ Clive Lloyd (vice-captain). 6. Gary Sobers/ Rohan Khanai. 7. Clyde Walcott (wkpr); 8. Malcolm Marshall. 9. Michael Holding. 10. Wes Hall/ Andy Roberts. 11. Curtly Ambrose/ Lance Gibbs. Reserves, just barely cut from the rest (especially Dessie), were Desmond Haynes, Jackie Hendriks, Colin Croft, Courtney Walsh and Joel Garner.
But here’s the only really important thing, and the thing we’ll return to next week: no matter who said what about Lawrence Rowe, Carl Hooper, Richie Richardson, Alvin Kallicharan and so on, with the exception of only one person, scores of cricket writers from all around the world, ranging in age from early 20s to 60s-plus, all chose the same captain.
Sir Frank Worrell.
What does that mean to the modern West Indies, hovering, as we are, on the brink of a collapse as spectacular, as certain and as imminent as our modern batsmen?
