HOW OFTEN HAVE you read a cricket book written by a non-West Indian and come close to blowing a gasket, or at least got a little annoyed, at a clear misrepresentation of facts or issues relating to the Caribbean game?
From my limited experience it happens regularly, not just in print, but also in the spoken word.
Yet even when obvious misconceptions are pointed out – like the widely held view outside of the region that our decline has to do with thousands and thousands of talented tall black young men going off to play an array of American sports – they still persist, and continue to be repeated by supposedly seasoned observers of the game all over the world.
A classic example would have been last September in Dubai, when the West Indies team’s media manager, Philip Spooner, opened the floor to questions at a pre-match media conference and one of the first queries from a seasoned Pakistani colleague concerned the impact of losing potential cricketing talent to baseball and basketball. Exasperated would be the best way to describe Spooner’s subsequent reaction.
Why, after all these years and so many outstanding players and virtually invincible teams is so little still known about these territories to the extent that the freewheeling transmission of blatant inaccuracies continues unabated?
Maybe because we haven’t devoted enough time and effort to telling our own stories, chronicling our cricketing history in great detail for the benefit not only of the generations to come but the hundreds of the millions out there who see us as nothing more than havens of sun, sea and sand with a bit of fast bowling and big hitting in between the lapping waves.
This weekend the world’s most popular cricket website, ESPNCricinfo, is carrying a feature by English writer David Hopps in which he gives brief reviews on what he considers 15 of the best cricket books for 2016. It goes without saying that none are written by West Indians and even the lone selection that focuses on Caribbean cricket is penned by Englishman Simon Lister and carries the same title as the film that apparently inspired it, Fire In Babylon, so the less said about that the better.
But this really isn’t the shortcoming of Englishmen or Australians or Indians or anyone else outside of the West Indies. Journalistic professionalism and integrity may demand greater attention to detail and basic accuracy, yet what does it really matter to the international audience?
It doesn’t affect them directly, so why should they care if Caribbean cricketers are referred to as “waifs and strays” or a prominent former England player breaks out into mocking laughter on air when Tony Cozier explains that the three-member committee appointed to delve into the ills of West Indies cricket in 2007 were not prominent players but well respected personalities in the region, P.J. Patterson, Sir Alister McIntyre and Ian McDonald?
Tony was really the lone consistent voice and pen of West Indies cricket authority amid the wilderness of ignorance and misinformation. Now that the distinctive voice has been silenced and the pen laid to rest after more than 60 years of dedicated service, there appears to be no one capable of filling the void, certainly not in the area of authoritative writing and advocacy on the game in these territories for the consumption of those here at home and cricket fans much further afield.
Our Caribbean culture is often described as one stronger on oral traditions than written ones. Yes, there is a considerable body of work dating back more than a hundred years on the game either from a broad West Indian perspective or with specific focus on one of the territories.
However, we don’t seem to have that culture of the written word that results in a greater and more consistent output of publications, either in the shape of autobiographies of outstanding players of the very recent past or even long-serving current ones, nor are there works that present information in a well written format.
As an example, the era of the greatest-ever cricketing dominance, the West Indies teams of 1980 to 1995 that played unbeaten through 29 Test series, is becoming an increasingly distant memory with nothing resembling a comprehensive work that provides colour and context to the easily accessible scorecards or the grainy, often blurry clips of great deeds that can be seen on YouTube.
Should it be any wonder then that West Indian cricketers of the modern era have virtually no connection whatsoever with that era of invincibility, to say nothing of an appreciation of those who went before, from Sobers to the 3Ws, Headley, Challenor and Constantine?
Where there’s a will there’s a way, but for whatever reason, we seem content with letting others tell our stories and occasionally misrepresent us along the way.
Fazeer Mohammed is a regional cricket journalist and broadcaster who has been covering the game at all levels since 1987.