SIR GARRY SOBERS was at Kensington Oval on Wednesday, presenting awards from the annual international schools competition that carries his name and personal stamp. Over its 29 years, it has attracted schools from neighbouring Caribbean islands, England, Canada, South Africa and India to Barbados.
A few days earlier, the Windward Islands were securing the annual West Indies Under-17 title in Guyana. In Jamaica, the Under-19s were underway in their tournament; the Under-15s were scheduled to start theirs in Guyana on Friday.
It was a sequence confirming that young cricketers everywhere have never had it so good.
Still in their teens, they become global travellers, seeking to craft early reputations against widely diverse opponents in International Cricket Council (ICC) Under-19 World Cups and bilateral series at every point on the game’s expanding compass.
They are accompanied by support staffs similar to the international teams – manager, coaches, physios, trainers.
The precursor to such developments in the West Indies was the board’s organisation of the first tournament for the coming generation as early as 1969; the age limit was 21. Lawrence Rowe and Bernard Julien were the standouts, soon to gain Test selection.
A Caribbean tour by a strong Australian schools team (including future internationals Ian Davis, Gary Cosier, Gary Gilmour and Trevor Chappell) followed at the end of the year; the West Indies Young Cricketers side was the first of its kind to England, initiating an exchange programme over the next decade.
The obvious corollary was the ICC’s standardisation of all youth cricket to Under-19 and the inauguration of its first World Cup, in Australia in 1988. It produced six future Test captains, Brian Lara and Jimmy Adams (West Indies), Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain (England), Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pakistan) and Sanath Jayasuriya (Sri Lanka). Inexplicably, it was ten years before it became established on the ICC’s programme. At the same time, separate bilateral series have proliferated.
The West Indies are a typical example of the consequent nomadic life of promising contemporary teenagers. They have contested all nine World Cups since; they were champions in the first, and only, Under-15 international tournament in England in 2000 from which six players moved on to Under-19s and then Test teams (Denesh Ramdin, Marlon Samuels, Assad Fudadin, Lendl Simmons, Xavier Marshall, Ravi Rampaul).
Apart from the other nine full members, they have played against Afghanistan, the Americas, Denmark, Ireland, Kenya, Namibia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, United Arab Emirates and USA.
Such opportunities could only be imagined by their predecessors. Not that it hindered some of the finest players the game has known, simply that performances in international age-group tournaments are now the preliminary path to the highest level.
Before the first World Cup, in Australia in 1988, records in domestic matches, along with their own intuition, informed selectors as to whether hopeful adolescents were ready for the real thing.
There was never any doubt about Sir Garry; sheer natural ability, the grounding of high-standard club cricket, the guidance of trusted mentors and a passion for sports elevated the boy from the Bayland into the Barbados team in 1953, aged 16, and the West Indies Test team against England at Sabina Park a year later.
The same assets, along with the example of his elder brothers Wazir and the prolific Hanif, combined to make the Pakistani, Mushtaq Mohammad, still the youngest of all Test players at 15.
India’s selectors needed no more proof than what everyone could observe for themselves to bypass age-group competitions and thrust Sachin Tendulkar into the first of his 200 Tests at 16.
Sir Garry, Hanif, Mushtaq and their fellow Pakistani, Intikhab Alam, the Australian Ian Craig and Bangladesi Mushfiqur Rahim were 17 on debut; they eventually proceeded to Test captaincy. So did the prodigy Tendulkar.
For a variety of reasons, innumerable other teens have found the transition to the top a step too far and have faded into oblivion.
The game has now evolved to such an extent that Under-19 experience is virtually mandatory for Test selection.
Nathan Lyon is the only Australian in the on-going Ashes series without an Under-19 appearance on his c.v.. England have two – Stuart Broad, surprisingly, and Mark Wood.
The West Indies’ ratio of four in the recent home Tests against Australia (Devendra Bishoo, Shannon Gabriel, Shai Hope and Jerome Taylor) was unusually high.
At the first Sobers Schools Tournament in Barbados, Charlie Davis, the former West Indies batsman, persuaded Sir Garry to look out for a diminutive left-hander from Trinidad’s Fatima College. His name was Brian Lara. Age-group cricket has not produced a more exceptional cricketer since. It would be unrealistic to expect one. Yet the list of top players who first came to notice as Under-19s is long and varied. Two from the last World Cup, in the United Arabs Emirates in 2014 have instantly made their mark at the top level.
Ragiso Rabada, a raw, express fast bowler, marked his first appearance for South Africa with six for 16 from eight overs against Bangladesh in Dhaka on July 10; no one has had such a sensational ODI debut. Mustafizur Rahman, a left-arm swinger, responded with five wickets in the next two matches that Bangladesh won to clinch the series 2-1; his four for 37 was the home team’s best in South Africa’s all-out 247 in the first Test.
More are certain to follow. Perhaps even a few West Indians.
Tony Cozier is the most experienced cricket writer and commentator in the Caribbean.
