The bust of Sir Everton Weekes hit the ground. But our earth barely moved.
There was no earthquake of concern – no serious rumblings of disgust and consternation; no palpable aftershock of widespread wails and shrieks of anguish.
But it may just be that with the economic wolf huffing and puffing at the door these days, everything else gets fleeting attention.
Perhaps, though, the response to Sir Everton’s seeming desecration was symptomatic of our true soul-disconnect from our cricket.
For years we told ourselves the lie that the dreams and hopes of the West Indian people rested on the fortunes of the West Indies cricket team. Look, our dreams and hopes in many, many cases rest mostly on having a job tomorrow, a party or some other similar pleasure tonight, and the prospect of having sex sometime soon. I jest – somewhat.
Maybe we just rallied ourselves into the ground.
In the late 1990s, as West Indies cricket slumped and slumped, the cricket-loving people of the West Indies had a non-anthem foisted on them by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) – a second coming of David Rudder’s Rally Round The West Indies.
In its original 1988 form, it was a call to fans to abandon their criticism and cynicism and support the team – no anthem there.
Reconstituted, the song still does not make that inside-out resonant declaration of focused communal hopes and aspirations for the enterprise – which is the mark of real anthems.
However, I believe it put into our minds that our main role was to be supportive – regardless. I dare say this “anthem” shifted the onus of responsibility for success onto the supporters.
When Rudder first sang it, you could take it or leave it. But when it was installed as an anthem and propagandized from stadium to stadium, from electronic media outlet to media outlet as an imperative to fans, it was making its call irresistible – though bereft of the real what-it-takes of anthem or cricket success.
And as the fans went at it with a passion, it probably also helped to speed up the “partyization” of our cricket, which undoubtedly got into the bloodstream of players.
When a “party” culture (after all, carnivals and such are even promoted as the defining aspects of these islands) heavily imports its “partyizing” into its sport, without the necessary bulwarks for the sport’s sturdy accomplishment, the sport is more likely to become a casualty than in a culture which does not so define itself.
Yuh remember that the late Sir Frank Worrell had sought to change that attitude (“calypso cricket”) in favour of a serious, clinical approach, which brought more high-level consistency and, with it, ascendancy?
It seemed, however, that “rallying” became our mark. Criticism and coolness towards the team virtually became anathema. I remember Tony Cozier was deemed a traitor by many for what was arguably objectivity.
The culture, which had previously been analytical and called a West Indies cricket spade a spade – sometimes going too far, yes – became soft on our cricketers, and thereby acquiescent in their failure. People were rallying – in the most narrow, and dangerous, way.
We were so much into rallying that we sat idly by while sponsors and TV managers put greater focus on the spirit of spectatorship than on a deep and abiding spirit of outstanding cricket playing.
Shame
And while we rallied, not too many fixed their minds on what an abominable shame to our culture our descent was.
You know that if Brazil ever slipped to even tenth (out of over 200 football-playing countries), Brazilians wun tek it so. We slipped to seventh or eighth out of ten and were still giddy-headedly “rallying”.
We are now approaching 20 years of cricket misery and the other night I saw a pained Tony Cozier on television lamenting the present state of West Indies cricket.
Nobody is pillorying him now. We know in our heart of hearts that individual mind-boggling exploits in the T20 form and the team’s reaching the pinnacle therein do not constitute excellence of a cricket culture. The Test is still the test.
Anyway, the other day I read that the WICB has a plan for, so to speak, redemption.
I waiting . . . on Cameron, on Muirhead, on Pybus.
I am waiting on a focus on producing and selecting players who have not only requisite skills, but also, critically, an unmistakable zeal for impressive performance – both theirs and the team’s – as well as mental toughness and a high level of game intelligence.
I waiting on cricketers whose talk evidences discernment rather than clichéd pap.
I waiting for a focus on true leaders of men, which is probably more critical here, where personal responsibility, fierce focus on accountability, passion for excellence of the enterprise and healthy though potent dissatisfaction with defeat are not exactly our marks.
And I waiting on spectators who in large numbers both know and appreciate the game – and are not mostly looking for a party and to “rally” at whoever’s beck and call.
Sad to say, I am not holding my breath.
Verily, West Indies cricket has had lots of rallying and rallying – and repressed truths.
• Sherwyn Walters is a writer who became a teacher, a song analyst, a broadcaster and an editor. Email offwally@gmail.com.