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“…a divided world that don’t need islands no more…”
Can it be that Sir Clive Lloyd does not know fellow OCC awardee David Rudder’s pithy line from his 1988 Rally? Or is it that he simply wishes to ignore it? Or is the problem that Rudder’s 1996 Legacy prediction has not exactly panned out?
Photo: Nicholas Bhajan/ Wired868
Not, at any rate, quite as Rudder foresaw it.
The issue unexpectedly resurfaced for me as I watched the recent Paris Olympics. The Spanish national anthem played as Jordan Alejandro Dίaz stood on the top of the podium for the Men’s Triple Jump.
He was flanked by Portugal’s Pedro Pichardo (silver) and Italy’s Andy Dίaz Hernάndez (bronze). All three jumpers were born in the same country, Cuba.
Think Donovan Bailey and Linford Christie, John Barnes and Raheem Sterling, Tim Duncan and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Ron Headley and Devon Malcolm and Chris Jordan and Jofra Archer to name only those. And think too of the roles played by Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo in the recent ICC Cricket World Cup.
Photo: Nicholas Bhajan/ Wired868
Maybe they don’t need islands no more. But they sure seem to think they still need islanders!
The now 79-year-old Sir Clive, indisputably the most successful of West Indies captains, has also been coach, manager, selector, commentator, match referee and head of the ICC’s Cricket Committee as well as an unsuccessful candidate for the post of WICB president.
He was summoned to the Caricom Heads of Government Meeting in Grenada in late July to receive the Order of the Caribbean Community. He said he felt compelled, Kraigg Brathwaite’s West Indies having just been whitewashed by Ben Stokes’ England, to raise the issue of Caribbean cricket’s continuing travails.
“When we were playing,” Lloyd said, “[…] we were the cash cow for these guys. But now that we may be a little down in the dumps, nobody is saying, ‘Well, you know, West Indians need some help.’
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Gallo Images/ Wired868
“I think it is about time that our Board members make a special call to the ICC […] to tell them that we need some special dispensation […]”
The ICC Cricket Hall of Famer, whose name was offered by a British schoolboy in answer to the question what is Black Power, apparently has no problem going cap in hand to the ICC.
How have the mighty fallen!
According to Lloyd, at the last ICC distribution, England, India and Australia each received 180m; West Indies got 80m. But in the next cycle, Lloyd omitted to mention, things get worse: India alone collects almost 40% of the pie!
Photo: ICC
I have seen neither Indian nor Australian criticism of those proposed arrangements. Not surprisingly, though—remember the days of the MCC being in charge?—British writers have tackled the issue.
Writing in the Telegraph shortly after the rapid end of the Lord’s First Test, Simon Heffer calls for an end to “the disproportionate allocation of cricket’s resources”.
Under the headline, ‘Test cricket against teams outside the ‘big three’ is rapidly becoming unsustainable’, he says he has “seen the grimness of the future at first hand”.
“The cricketing authorities in the West Indies have very little money,” he continues, “thanks to such a vast proportion of the game’s wealth now being channelled into the bank accounts of a few very rich Indians.
“The tiniest fraction of that sum (the IPL has been valued, he claims, at US$16.4b) would be life-changing for West Indies cricket.”
He talks about the “blatantly uncompetitive cricket of the sort just displayed at Lord’s” and “the breathtaking mediocrity of the side (England) beat”.
Photo: Getty
The major problem currently plaguing West Indies cricket is that “many young sportsmen in the Caribbean, […] attracted by the culture of the United States, […] favour basketball over cricket.”
So, “[n]o great lesson can be drawn from this performance in terms of what it means for when England next come up against a serious side such as Australia or India.”
How have the mighty fallen!
Photo: CWI Media
The headline of the column penned by the Telegraph’s chief cricket writer Scyld Berry reads: ‘West Indies were set up to fail against England but nobody in cricket seems to care’.
Berry begins thus: “Before the start of every match in this three-Test series, the West Indian anthem of Rally round the West Indies was played. The lyrics have fallen on deaf ears.”
And he ends thus: “It was no surprise the West Indian Test players looked grim at the anthems shortly before 11am on Friday morning. They must have known better than anyone that nobody out there was going to rally round them.”
In between, he writes: “Nobody has listened, not the sport’s governing body that is the International Cricket Council (ICC), not other administrators, not governments, not philanthropists. Nobody has rallied round the West Indies Test team.”
“Nobody is rallying round youngsters,” he adds, “who want to further the legacy left by previous generations.
“[…] Every single franchise out there […] wants West Indian cricketers, but only for short-form, white-ball cricket. The territories are as fertile as ever in producing physical specimens who can bowl quick and hit long balls.”
But, if West Indian Test cricket is to survive, “[r]eal rallying round is required, […] direct intervention and financial investment”.
“Even if nobody in cricket feels philanthropic or wants to see the great West Indian traditions preserved, surely the administrators should have helped out just a little?”
Lamenting the composition of WI’s “papier mâché” middle order, he salutes Shai Hope as “a fine number four”.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Wired868
“Given a central contract on the line of Joe Root’s, or Steve Smith’s, Hope could have been playing red-ball first-class cricket ahead of this tour and at least partially filling the vacuum.”
The vacuum became obvious towards the turn of the century. And remains unfilled. Around that same time, in Legacy, Rudder was making his prediction:
The child being “born in our islands/ his shoulders so broad they had to take him out by the way of Caesar/ a frightening thought for those bewildered knights who stand in the way of our destiny.”
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Wired868
“Today,” said Rudder, “they think it’s hard but tomorrow is harder.”
Harder, indeed. Ask Sir Clive Lloyd.
For us—woe oh oh oh!—and for WI.
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Earl Best taught cricket, French, football and Spanish at QRC for many years and has written consistently for the Tapia and the Trinidad and Tobago Review since the 1970’s.
He is also a former sports editor at the Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad Express and is now a senior lecturer in Journalism at COSTAATT.
