Calypso Kings in a Spin

Once the powerhouse of the game, West Indian cricket has been hit for six. With a World Cup looming in the Caribbean, can the sport’s governing bodies arrest the decline before it’s too late? Henry Blofeld reports

The light is fading but play continues. It’s a humid Sunday evening on a plot of public land just outside the Antiguan village of Urlings and two youngsters are at the crease. In the fi eld, close to the bat, are mothers, grandfathers, aunts and uncles. A teenager is at mid-wicket and a toddler is looking lively in the covers. What a glorious scene – especially to those of us who know that cricket is more than just a game.

But scratch the surface and all is not well. Indeed, the outlook for West Indies cricket has never seemed bleaker. After ruling the world in the 1970s and 1980s, they have since been paying the penalty for thinking that their success would continue indefi nitely. ose in charge ignored the need to look to the future and nurture new talent. When old age fi nally caught up with the side Clive Lloyd passed down to Viv Richards they had not brought on nearly enough top-quality players. Today, there is a danger that West Indies cricket may disintegrate completely.

Defeat has become commonplace. Worse still, the reputation of West Indies cricket has suff ered because of one badly fl awed genius, Brian Lara. As the principal player it would have been impossible to deny Lara the captaincy. But he has now had two shots at the job and

A full house in the 1970s watches West Indian cricket rule the world

Viv Richards sets off on another run during his brilliant career

Cricket is how the West Indies can stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world

has shown that he is not up to it, neither tactically on the fi eld or strategically off it. He appears to make little eff ort to understand those under him and is too self-obsessed for his own good or that of the team. If a side is to win test matches consistently, discipline is crucial.

Last winter, in Australia, the reputation of the West Indies sank to an all-time low, as they joined their hosts and Pakistan in the annual one-day triangular tournament. Not only did the West Indies fail to qualify for the best-ofthree fi nals, but their behaviour off the fi eld was so awful that the representative of their new sponsor, Digicel, felt forced to write to his employers in disgust. Apparently the players had been busier chasing the ladies in night clubs than victories on the fi eld. More recently, the side was split asunder when Lara and other stars – sponsored by a rival telecommunications fi rm – were dropped for the home tests against South Af rica in another sad indictment of the current sorry state of aff airs. Now, with the next World Cup being held in the West Indies in 2007, it will be a mammoth undertaking for this beautiful but splintered part of the world to run the competition effi ciently. One of the main problems is that the West Indies is only a generic name for purposes of cricket. e cricketing West Indies is made up of a large number of small independent nations all of which are understandably keen to look after their own interests. Another perennial problem is the proximity of the United States. e Caribbean islands are deluged by American television channels. Young West Indians have the chance to watch baseball, basket ball, volley ball, American football and every other sort of ball in the USA. ey realise the stars in these sports earn a good deal more than those who reach the top in cricket. Nonetheless, American sport does not pose quite the threat to cricket that outsiders may imagine. e great Viv Richards is cautiously optimistic. ‘When you take the manner in which we won that one-dayer at the Oval last September, you can see that there is plenty of ability about,’ he told me. ‘What we need is consistency to go with this ability. e players need to be disciplined and this is the coach’s job. e players have got to get the hard yakka done. ey must do the basics well. Yes, in the long term I think it’ll be all right but just at the moment I have a resigned feeling.’

Steve Camacho, the former West Indian opening batsman who was until recently the chief executive of the West Indies Board of Control, is more bullish. ‘Cricket is still the major televised sport in the Caribbean. e youngsters are not really going for the American sports. e crowds have not gone away in spite of the results and have been as good for test as for one-day cricket. e real problem is that those in control have to bring the discipline back. From the moment that Lara and one or two other members of the team defi ed the board over money for the South Af rican tour six years ago, it has got worse. I only

Play continues at the Recreation Ground in Antigua before making way for a new stadium a few miles down the road

TOM SHAW/GETTY IMAGES

ramshackle but f riendly and welcoming. One, just to the right of the old wooden pavilion was the home of that most colourful Antiguan character, Gravy. He would wear extravagantly colourful clothes and while the cricket was in progress, he would sing and dance to the music played by his partner in arms, Chicky. Gravy would climb over the f ront of the stand and, hanging onto the railings, get up to all manner of antics to the great delight and amusement of the crowd. Of course it will be sad to leave all this behind, but more sensible to regard the building of a bigger, more modern ground a few miles away to the east as important progress. e crowd capacity will be larger; there will be more space hope the new Australian coach, Bennett King, was just over the for advertisements; better who ran the Australian Academy, will be a major infl uence for good.’ Cricket is still, by some distance, the most road where Viv Richards’s father was once an Brian Lara watches as the ball heads for the boundary facilities for television, the life’s blood of contemporary cricket; and a more streamlined popular game in the Caribbean and is truly offi cer. For years groundstaff even if there will be a national sport. It is seen as the one activity the prisoners helped the groundstaff with less need to worry about the where the West Indians can stand shoulder to the heavy roller. When the pitch was rolled immediate past records of those pulling the shoulder with everyone else in the world. For on the fi rst morning of a test match, two or heavy roller. e new ground will be named, peoples who are desperately seeking their own three prison warders were allowed out onto appropriately enough, the Viv Richards identities, the importance of this should not the middle. e lucky inmates who had been Stadium, and it should generate enough be underestimated. given the chance of a brief look at the outside money to enable these new facilities to be kept e eyes of more than just cricket will be world were not just minor criminals. ere up to standard. A cricket ground, like those upon the West Indies in 2007. In an ideal could well have been a convicted murderer or polo grounds at Smith’s Lawn, Cowdray Park world it would be wonderful if they could two lending a hand. and the rest, cost a lot to maintain. not only produce the best of World Cups in e stands at the Recreation Ground, Viv Richards, the island’s greatest son, terms of logistics and organisation, but also which will now be used for football, are rather is realistic about the new stadium. ‘A lot of a side at least capable of competing at the highest level. is World Cup is going to bring about a It’ s the mandarins people will have a sentimental thing about the Recreation Ground,’ he said. ‘I shall miss it. Dad worked on the wicket and knows the number of changes. Tiny grounds fi lled by spectators who take home a small per capita of all sports who ground well. We’ll all miss Gravy, but he’s retired anyway. en, capacity comes into play income have always been a problem. e lure of the World Cup has persuaded the Antiguan must grasp their and, man, sentiment mustn’t get in the way. e more people who see the game, the more authorities of the need for a newer and bigger ground, the money for what will be a multipurpose stadium being provided largely by respective nettles interest is created.’ e governing bodies of cricket in the West Indies have a huge task. Indeed, it China, of all places. No, the Chinese is the mandarins of most sports have not taken a sudden interest in – whether it be rugby or polo – who cricket, but deviously are keen to win are forced to grasp their respective the votes of the West Indian countries nettles in making hard decisions, inside the United Nations. and looking forward not backwards.

Diehard traditionalists will rue the Most important, it means fostering moving on f rom the romantic old the talent which undoubtably is still Recreation Ground, which fi rst saw there. Yes, Brian Lara needed to be test cricket in 1981 and has produced put out to grass but, in addition, greats including Andy Roberts, Curtley those two lads running between the Ambrose and Richie Richardson. It wickets on a cabbage patch of a pitch had an intimacy which lent its own on a Sunday evening in Antigua character to West Indies and Leewards need to know that one day they Islands cricket. could be ruling the cricketing world ere was the island’s prison which Viv Richards plays it straight on the snooker table once again. ■