MARLON SAMUELS sat with his feet on the table. He still had his pads on. Minutes earlier he had planted his drenched body on a couch outside the press conference room. He was also soaked with emotion. Half-an-hour earlier he was taking his shirt off, and making an angry march towards the English dug-out. It required close to five of his teammates and coach Phil Simmons to pull him back. (STATS || POINTS TABLE || FIXTURES)
Samuels had turned down an interview request a day before the semi-final. “I’m a silent killer,” he’d said. But now he wanted to talk. He called Ben Stokes a nervous chap who never learnt that the more he sledged at Samuels, the more he hurt his England. He berated Shane Warne for disparaging remarks that the Australian had made about the Jamaican on commentary. “Maybe I have a real face and he doesn’t,” he explained.
Darren Sammy had his feet on the floor. But he spoke his mind too. He had jumped the highest of all the West Indian players after picking his second World T20 title in less than four years. He was a champion. His team was a champion. Dwayne Bravo was right after all. He spoke about what this victory meant to the entire Caribbean region.
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He lamented about the lack of support from the board and confessed that he didn’t know when he would be part of a West Indian dressing-room again. Someone asked him about whether this win was based on vengeance. He asked the journalist to pause and ask him the same query once he was done taking about the victory.
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He spoke about how he had all night to talk. People in the Caribbean were just digesting their lunch by the time Carlos Brathwaite redefined the term ‘Cool’ with four sixes off four balls in a World Cup final where 19 were required off the final over.
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In 1979, West Indies became the first team to win the 50-over World Cup twice. Twenty-seven years later, they became the first team to win the World T20 twice. England was the team to suffer on both occasions. They were on top of the world across all available formats back then. The year 2016 started with their Test and ODI teams in the doldrums. Then their U-19 team won the World Cup against all odds. Their women beat all odds to beat Australia a few hours before their men did the same.
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And clearly this win meant a lot for Sammy & Co. They had forgotten about their preparation for the final and ran on to the field to celebrate with their female counterparts earlier in the day. Now was their time to show the world how you celebrate. These are individuals who are now used to stand on podiums with fireworks going around them and them covered in glitter. They have lit up every T20 tournament they are a part of. The world called them mercenaries. They never bothered. They simply boarded flights, embraced new teammates, became the life of dressing-rooms, and won titles for whichever franchise was lucky enough to have their services.
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“Mark Nicholas did a boo-boo, and the rest of the world is paying for it,” is how one of their indelible and passionate supporters put it.
They have been pioneers at every stage in the evolution of T20 cricket, just like they were when Test cricket and ODI cricket was coming into vogue. If the world hit the ball hard, they hit it harder and further. They taught the world how to chase down totals without ever letting the pressure get to you. They produced spinners, with mystery or otherwise, who bowled in the power-play with the new-ball and managed economy rates of less than 6-an-over. They were all-season, all-condition performers, the kinds the world had never seen.
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Here, they were playing together, probably for the last time in a while. They were playing for each other. They were playing for pride. They were playing to prove a point. They were playing for glory.
So what if this victory doesn’t immediately set off talks of the re-emergence of the mighty West Indies. Right now, at the Eden Gardens in front of 60,000 plus fans, mainly Indian, cheering for them, they had shown the world that they were the champions.
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It wasn’t one of their globally feted T20 superstars who had won them the game in the end. It was a 27-year-old playing in his first World Cup, forget his first final. And in a five-minute period where the world watched in awe, the towering Barbadian just showed why the world smiles whenever the hear the words West Indies, why a happy West Indies team means a happy cricket world.
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