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Columnist Earl Best imagines himself a fly on the wall in the West Indies dressing room in Mumbai:
“Reckless!”
As though discarding a chewed up plum seed, West Indies all-formats coach Daren Sammy spat the word into the middle of the dressing room. For what seemed like an eternity, he left it just where it had fallen.
Photo: Getty.
Eventually, he broke the silence.
“Everybody is this room who cares about West Indies cricket is old enough to know that word and to know who used it in relation to a West Indies innings.”
There followed another long, awkward pause. During it, five people, including bowling coach Ravi Rampaul, fidgeted uncomfortably. Finally, Johnson Charles, the oldest player on the squad, raised his hand. He would bell the cat.
“I know, Coachman,” he said softly. “I’ll never forget.”
At 37, he was too young to have lived through 1975 and 1979, when the rampant Caribbean Cavaliers whipped the world to claim the first two 60-over World Cup titles.
True, skipper Clive Lloyd and allrounder Collis King had smashed the England and Australia bowling cavalierly to all parts of the Lord’s Ground. But nobody would have called that reckless. ‘Carefree,’ ‘hard-hitting,’ ‘match-winning.’ ‘Reckless’ is reserved for defeats.
Like in the 1983 semifinal defeat by India.
Set 183 to capture their third successive title, Lloyd’s men could muster only 140. Most people need reminding that Jeff Dujon’s patient 25 came off 73 balls. But which West Indian has forgotten that Viv Richards top-scored with a brisk 33 off 28 balls before Kapil Dev ran some 30 yards to take a fine catch and put West Indies backs to the wall?
Maybe that was a reckless shot. But did anybody famously say so?
Charles would still have been young in 1996. He was only seven, old enough to have seen the disastrous World Cup outing in Pune. Then, chasing Kenya’s modest 167, Richie Richardson’s troops could muster a mere 93, Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s 19 the top score. Disappointing certainly. Feckless perhaps. But reckless?
All eyes turned to the back-up wicketkeeper.
“Well, Charlo,” Sammy said, “tell them. Tell us!”
“It was BCL, the Prince of Port-of-Spain,” Charles said, almost inaudibly. “That was in 2021. I’ll never forget.”
“Yeah. I try but I can’t forget either,” Akeal Hosein piped up, sheepishly. “After the World Cup match against England. Adil Rashid got four for two and we were all out for 55.”
“Chris Gayle made 13,” Shimron “Hetty” Hetmyer chimed in, “off 13 balls. Nobody else reached double figures.”
“Not even extras!” Hosein offered.
A few players snickered but nobody dared laugh.
“Lara said ‘It was disappointing’,” Charles continued. “‘it was reckless’.”
“Correct!” Sammy raised his hands above his head and applauded. “In fact, he also said ‘I don’t have words to describe it.’ But I do: a thing of the past.”
Photo: Getty Images.
Three times, he sliced the air in front of his chest with his open palm. “Finished! Over! Done!”
“Gentlemen,” the coach continued, lowering his voice, “We have exorcised that demon, slain that ghost. For this team, recklessness is history. And the only history that matters in the present is 2016…”
He let that sink in.
“I have a vibe. I have a dream.”
Photo: Getty Images.
Another pause. Then, turning to look directly at Brandon King, he asked: “That’s not news to you, Dr King, is it?”
The stylish Jamaican opener did not reply. The indirect rebuke was not totally unexpected. With Nepal on 46 for 5, Sammy would have been over the moon. After 15 overs, he still had a broad smile. But when the Nepalese recovered to add all of 60 off the last five overs, things changed
“West Indies will feel,” Sammy had heard one television commentator say, “they have the firepower to chase down 134 runs with ease.”
His head full of the dream of a 2016 World Cup repeat, the two-T20-World-Cups-winning captain was not unmindful of past West Indian World Cup struggles. And hearing what remained unsaid, he used the little time available to them between innings to drive home the lesson about complacency. About taking feet off the pedal. About taking things for granted.
Photo: Getty Images.
He stressed it out loud to the whole group. And, before the openers went back out to the middle, he whispered it again as a parting shot to a select few, including all of the top four.
It must have gone in one of King’s ears and quickly out the other. With three overs completed and the score reading 21 without loss, he ran down the wicket and flailed in vain at the first and second balls of the over.
Then, in the last over of the powerplay, he made contact and pulled the same bowler straight into mid-on’s hands.
Reckless!
Photo: Getty Images.
“What everybody in here needs to get into their head is that a 2026 World Cup win is my dream only in the sense that I put it into words. But it is not my dream at all. It is not even our dream.
“Our winning a third T20 title this year is a Caribbean dream. And only by working together and each of us pulling our weight can we make this dream come true.
“I know and you all know that talent is not our problem. If that was not clear after 2016, we reminded everybody in the first two rounds.”
Appropriately for a Carnival Sunday evening, he burst into song: “England now understand /we are the champion / Carlos caray and hit them plowtow, plowtow, two six / plowtow plowtow…”
The room joined in: “…more licks.”
“Today, Shai (Hope) and Hetty again showed that our batting is up there with the best. Jason (Holder) and Romario (Shepherd) are now among the top five wicket-takers in the tournament, I think. And I have great expectations for”—in his best Kitchener imitation—“those two little friends of mine, G Motie and A Hosein.”
The room roared its approval.
“We know the opposition media are itching to splash Lara’s word,” Sammy continued, “in their headlines. Like in 2016, they want us to fail. In spite of 2016, they expect us to fail.”
Loud agreement from the room.
“But we won’t give them the satisfaction!”
Photo: Getty Images.
More shouted acquiescence, approval.
“They forget that cricket in we DNA! So, we goin to give them thunder. If they want a word—they wouldn’t use it—but if they want a word, I have a word for them; today against Nepal, Thursday against Italy and next week against whoever unlucky enough to get West Indies in the Super Eights draw. Let us give them a word.”
Sundry suggestions came from the buzzing room, every one off the mark.
“Clinical!” Sammy finally announced, “Let them take ‘clinical’ in their rukungkutungkung!”
Raising his left hand high above his head, Hosein responded.
“Rally…,” he sang, “Rally round the West Indies / now and forever…”
Photo: Getty Images.
And this spontaneous, probably premature victory rally at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium went on and on until…
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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.
