IT’S NOT EASY being a West Indian cricketing legend, even in places like Sharjah where the game is sustained only by the undying enthusiasm of tens of thousands of expatriate Pakistanis.
Sometimes it seems that their adulation is misplaced, given the pitiful efforts of the World Twenty20 champions in the three-match series and the dispiriting manner in which the following rubber of three One-Day Internationals against Pakistan unfolded on Friday.
Yet, such has been the impact globally of Caribbean giants like Sir Vivian Richards, especially on the cricket-crazy environment of the Indian sub-continent, that the degree of suffocating reverence by the fans is almost unbearable, notwithstanding the chronic inability of the generation that has followed the likes of the “Master Blaster” to sustain a level of performance anywhere close to the dizzying standard set by those all-conquering heroes of the 1970s to the early 1990s.
It was here at Sharjah, a venue that has changed little in over 30 years but for the installation of floodlights (which failed at the end of the Pakistani innings in the first ODI), that spectators were entranced in the mid-1980s by the dominance, the arrogance, the flair and the incomparable skill of arguably the greatest force ever unleashed on the game.
True, they filled the modest stands and shouted and waved flags in support of their beloved Pakistan. But there was nothing but awe and admiration for the West Indies of that era, with haughty gum-chewing Viv at the helm. Those sensations remain palpable around this ageing, dusty ground even as the present team labours under the weight of such a monumental legacy.
For all that has transpired since the end of that unprecedented era, West Indies remain to international cricket what Brazil are to football – everybody’s favourite team apart from their own. It is an impact created not merely by runs, wickets and dominating victories, although everyone loves a winner.
No, it was about the swagger, the smiles and the celebrations that embellished the ultra-professional performances which made them so eminently likeable, especially as it was achieved without the disgraceful verbal baiting of opponents that has been sanitised by such laughable contemporary references as “sledging” and “mental disintegration”.
In fact, it is fair to say that while so many West Indians – ageing ones disillusioned by the protracted degeneration, or more youthful compatriots brought up in an environment where defeat has become a way of life – now offer only cursory recognition to the regional team and its history, elsewhere West Indies cricket is still respected as having scaled heights that no other team is ever likely to reach.
If for that reason only, there is a professional responsibility by all who bear the colours onto the field of play to give of their best, to be at the very least seen to want to play the game hard, enthusiastically and in the right spirit, regardless of how toxic the relationship is with the administration. We may have been reduced to a collection of entertainers who can only turn it on in the abbreviated format of T20, but even that is enough to keep the fires burning far and wide in anticipation of the next outstanding performance.
Which is why it was disappointing to see a West Indies team, or at least some prominent players, who appeared to be looking for a reason not to play on Friday night when they seemed dissatisfied with the quality of lighting following the stoppage.
Would they have complained similarly if it were the Indian Premier League or some other lucrative franchise T20 competition? Maybe, but it did not come across as the right message to send by a team that had just been a huge disappointment in three T20s, or with a decent-sized crowd present and patiently waiting for over an hour for play to resume.
As it transpired, the 27 balls bowled in that tail-end of the Pakistan innings was the best passage of play for the West Indies in the field, where a target that looked certain to be comfortably over 300 was curtailed to 287.
Still daunting, and as it proved, way out of the reach of a team that has yet to be properly competitive after four matches of a tour that was supposed to be between two evenly-matched sides, at least in the limited-over variations.
Today’s second ODI represents another opportunity to arrest the slide, to show that there is more substance to West Indies cricket than the occasional brilliant bit of work in the field and a couple of sixes hoisted out of the ground in a losing effort.
Even some Pakistan fans are willing the West Indies to put up a better fight. That’s how bad it has become, and how strong that legacy still is.
Fazeer Mohammed is a regional cricket journalist and broadcaster who has been covering the game at all levels since 1987.
