Ramnaresh reaps Ramadhin legacy

But Shivnarine Chanderpaul had a more urgent point to make. Was that really you, he asked a young Jamaican woman of Indian origin, rooting for the Indians? ‘‘I heard a cry, ‘Go, Shiv, go’’’, he told her family, prominent supporters of the Caribbean squad, over a quiet dinner. ‘‘I recognised the voice, I looked around’’, he smiled, ‘‘and found she was spurring on Shiv Sundar Das!’’ Umm, she blushed.

It’s the East Indian dilemma in the West Indies when the men in blue go zigzagging through islands where cricket is still the most emotive expression of nationhood. Where cricket is seen not as a game played by flannelled brats, but an activity that helped these colonies humanise themselves, that gaves wave upon wave of oppressed inhabitants an opportunity to take on the world as equals.

And it is best recounted in an incident, perhaps apocryphal, at a cricket match in the Caribbean. India vs West Indies. A man in the stands is cheering wildly — for both sides. Hey, who you cheering for, demands his neighbour. Well, when We play Us, I get confused, says the man of Indian origin.

Lord Tebbit’s virulent strictures have thankfully not been adopted in this part of the world. How can they be when soca and reggae beats mix with chutney sounds so mellifluously in the aisles? When Afro-Caribbeans in smaller islands register their protest against exclusion from the playing eleven by dancing to Sachin Tendulkar’s boundaries?

When inquiries about national identity elicit long explanations about residents’ need to trace their roots to Africa, India, China or else their beginnings would be in slavery or indentureship?

But as one surveys fragments of a transplanted India in Guyana and Trinidad, where East Indians account for large chunks of the population — the Benares streets and the Indian food, old Bhojpuri melodies and Bollywood flicks screened with subtitles — cricket reflects a Caribbean churning, a new balance in the ledger.

It manifests itself in predictable ways. This autumn Trinidad stuttered into a fractious national election. With the leading prime ministerial candidates cynically pitting Afro- and Indo-Trinis, a newspaper columnist purred that at least there was one cause for celebration: As opposed to 10 per cent in the past, now 90 per cent of Indo-Trinis hooted for the home cricket team. It uncannily mirrored a comment by a Barbadian — herself black but with plenty of East Indians in her family tree — that East Indian West Indians have only new started volunteering for tough jobs like policing!

The view from the pitch is rather different. Hopefuls of Indian origin have long carried grievances about exclusion from the squad. It began well during West Indies’ dramatic entry on the global stage. During Sonny Ramadhin’s calypso-inspiring spin partnership with Alf Valentine. During Alvin Kallicharan and Rohan Kanhai’s exploits with the bat.

An Indian presence was marked during the rapid ascendancy of West Indies cricket in the mid-twentieth century — especially with Clyde Walcott’s famous talent hunts in the sugar belt.

Only to virtually vanish during Windies’ glory years.

Articles abound about Viv Richards’s repeated exultations about his team being the only black team on a victory roll at the international level. About the Rastafarian hues colouring the new team logo adopted at the time emphasising the absence of any Indian from his invincible squad. (Ironically, in Richards’s native Antigua they still cringe when they remember how his father Malcolm’s pace was ignored by worthies in the larger islands.)

To lay the blame, if at all there is any to be laid, at the doorstep of the lovely game’s most majestic king would perhaps be unfair. In any event, as Windies cricket now vies for talent with other, more American sports, East Indians are streaming on to the field. With numbers to show for themselves.

Of the 20 Indians to represent West Indies in Test cricket, seven have debuted since 1994. Take the current crop, a varied bunch that can in no way be deemed to have been brewed in the same vat. Chanderpaul with his un-Indian patience. Ramnaresh Sarwan with his penchant for the cover drive, cricket’s grandest stroke. Mahendra Nagamootoo with his wily legspinners. Darren Ganga with his now tested captaincy skills.

Their ranks are bound to be strengthened, with youngsters from Berbice in Guyana and central Trinidad lining up at stadia to announce their candidature.

Junior squads returning after lifting tournament trophies have plenty of East Indians — even as skippers and seamers.

And at a time when cricket remains the only metaphor for that old dream of West Indian unity, of a federation both cosmopolitan and plural, Chanderpaul and Carl Hooper’s current form has inspired a telling calypso in their native Guyana: “We must play Carl and Shiv,/ That’s how we must live,/ Curry cook-up with coconut metenge,/ Yellow plantain and dal puri.”