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Journalism of Courage
In the inevitable integration into a national community one of the most urgent needs is sport, and particularly cricket has played and will play a great role. There is no one in the West Indies who will not subscribe to the aphorism, what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?
8212;CLR James, Beyond a Boundary
Cricket has always been politics and especially for us in the Caribbean
8212;Viv Richards, Hitting Across the Line
Cricket is always on her mind, as she criss-crosses the Caribbean 8212; managing an extended but rain splattered week of the game in her native Jamaica, just a lunchtime8217;s worth of one-day action between India and West Indies at the Kensington Oval, content with prospects of a weekend of cricket in Port of Spain, rain permitting.
On this familiar itinerary, she once again wonders at the ties that bind the British Caribbean and the changes in West Indian society mirrored in the stadia, at the telling texture of applause that sets the islands apart. The maze of cricketing venues reflects her eclectic racial mix: her part-Guyanese father, her Tamil last name, her part-black, part-white mother, her siblings8217; marriages to ethnic Indians in Trinidad.
On a match day in Kingston will be telescoped social changes in Caribbean society. Gone are the Tante Merles, she sighs, those resourceful women of her childhood who8217;d arrive at the ground each day with wicker baskets that could only be termed bottomless pits. For thirsty spectators they8217;d whisk out fruit juice, to follow it up with chicken delicacies and much besides, giving them more sumptuous options to boring cucumber sandwiches on sale in islands just independent or still seeking self-rule from the British.
Today, gourmet options are taken care of at the Red Stripe Mound, as she joins 8220;maybe nine other people interested in the cricket8221; in a little corner, while the rest guzzle beer and party on. Her parents are in the more sedate George Headley stand ahead, her little circle is completed by folks like Peter, a Trinidadian who follows the Windies team most everywhere keeping extra chairs handy for strangers who may be seeking a friendly guide to the game and its dynamics.
8220;It is cricket that binds the West Indies and drives them apart,8221; says Tony Cozier, who has for more than three decades tracked the game in the region. 8220;It is one of the major things, if not THE major thing, that knits the West Indies together,8221; agrees Roger Harper, coach of the team still savouring the Test victory over India.
Cozier explains that to understand the role of cricket in the West Indies, one must first rewind to the circumstances of its introduction in the region. 8220;It was brought here in the mid-1800s by the British, and British settlers immediately took up the game,8221; he says. For the settlers it was an extremely significant way of connecting with the mother country, while for the black and Indian population it became a way of moving up, of asserting self-confidence.
In fact, while leading clubs aimed to be exclusively white, the earliest teams always had black players, notes Cozier 8212; against an external opponent racial divides were temporarily blurred. For instance, against England in 1900, the local team fielded blacks who worked as groundsmen and bowled at the nets. One of them, nicknamed Float, was so unaccustomed to boots that he finally had to strip off the sole so he could feel the turf below.
Cricket offered the only arena where the colonies could compete as an equal power and this imperial game ended up binding these islands, which too were an imperial creation 8212; people transplanted from far off lands to serve a colonial economy, distanced from their traditional cultures and left with a vacuum that the game filled. In addition cricket became a metaphor for nationalism. 8220;To beat the English at cricket,8221; says Cozier, 8220;was seen as proof that they could run their own affairs and were equal to their colonial master.8221;
As Michael Manley, former prime minister of Jamaica and cricket historian wrote recently: 8220;Each cricket and West Indian society was first conceived in colonialism and attendant self-doubt. In due course both progressed from doubt to self-assertion and then to maturity and the confidence that maturity brings. In this process, cricket and society are mirrors to each other. But cricket came first, like a forerunner pointing the way.8221;
It is probably more than coincidence, goes on Cozier, that the shortlived West Indian Federation 1958-62 coincided with the rise to captaincy of Frank Worrell most suitably lauded by Neville Cardus: 8216;An innings by Worrell knows no dawn, it begins at high noon8217;.
8220;It was an assertion of independence,8221; he says. For players like Learie Constantine, cricket was more than a game, it was really a mission, a mission transmitted to the public. 8220;Today cricket is a way of earning a living.8221;
8220;I think players are aware of what cricket still means to the people,8221; clarifies Harper. 8220;They may not respond to it in that manner as players in the past did.8221; It8217;s an assertion well proven by a straw poll. Ask a Jamaican still mourning the footballing defeat of the JAMAICAN team whether the Windies cricket squad can break up, and he8217;ll react with horror. Take an Antiguan8217;s complaint about the hegemony of certain islands in West Indian cricket and suggest that perhaps the team should be broken up, and he8217;ll stare back at you in complete incomprehension.
Ask a Barbadian whether he8217;d like to see island superiority stamped once again by fielding an all-Bajan eleven, and he8217;ll shake his head before giving you by way of explanation an introduction to British West Indian history, to Caricom politics, to centuries of colonial exploitation.
If the awareness among cricketers appears any less about their West Indian identity 8212; and in stray remarks it definitely does 8212; Cozier points to a possible reason: a stint in England with the major counties. Just as a whole generation of writers from the region 8212; the Sam Selvons, the George Lammings, the VS Naipauls 8212; perceived themselves as West Indians, not merely Trinidadians or Barbadians upon journeying to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, so it was with cricketers.
Playing in a foreign environment, says Cozier, gave cricketers 8212; like Constantine, George Headley, and thence on to generations of greats 8212; a sense of their West Indianness. Today, he rues there is not one West Indian playing major league or county cricket. 8220;The West Indian cricketer does not commit himself enough in county cricket and has tarnished his image. I don8217;t think he realises what it8217;s all about.8221;
The people of the British Caribbean, however, do. For them, cricket is still a mirror to society. For instance, Carl Hooper and Shivnarine Chanderpaul have just inspired a new calypso in Guyana lauding the simultaneous success of men hailing from the country8217;s two biggest racial groups.
Which is why Harper emphasises that winning the Test series was an important achievement both for the team and for the people of the region. Not that Patricia and friends need any motivation to continue their cricketing travels in a region they call home.
