West Indian cricket has plunged into the depths of despair, writes Richard Hinds
KNOWN as cricket’s merchants of dread during the 1980s, the West Indies have become the merchants of dreadful, writes Richard Hinds.
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BY the late 1980s thousands of Australians who believed Port of Spain was on the Mediterranean, Bundy was the only kind of rum and Bob Marley was a Manly prop pledged their allegiance to the West Indies.
Which they thought was a country.
These Rastas from Randwick were the fickle front-runners disheartened by the constant poundings Australia suffered at the hands of the brilliant, brutal West Indians or aesthetes who would rather watch Viv Richards wash his car than Allan Border eke out another bruising half-century.
How many of these Windian Wannabees will be in the grandstands at Bellerive, the MCG and the SCG over the next few weeks to see how the game’s merchants of dread have become the merchants of dreadful?
Not many. Test cricket’s loss will be the Big Bash League’s gain as those for whom the Boxing Day or the New Year Tests are not annual rituals invest their discretionary cricket dollar in the (possibly) shorter form of the game.
You can’t blame them. Undefeated in a Test series between 1980 and 1995, the West Indies have won just 14 and lost 78 Tests from the mid-2000s. The ‘Fire in Babylon’ has long been just embers.
The list of suspects in the case of ‘Who Killed West Indian Cricket’ is longer than Andy Roberts’ run-up. Local administrators who prepare pitches for spin, not speed and failed to build necessary infrastructure; the lure of fashionable American sports and the riches of T20 have all been taken in for questioning since the Caribbean plunged from indomitable to ignominious.
But as the Adelaide’s stupendously successful pink ball Test gives way to more sombre scenes at Bellerive on Thursday, those Cricket Australia officials who revelled in deserved praise last week might shuffle uncomfortably in their seats too.
That India, Australia and England connived to carve up the game’s riches and take a stranglehold on scheduling might not be the root cause of the West Indian decline. But it hasn’t helped with the difficult recovery.
The most obvious problem confronting West Indian cricket is the vast gap between what top-flight players can earn on the international T20 circuit and by wearing a maroon cap. Even as the West Indian board attempted to nurture more first class players last year by granting 80 full-time contracts, the international squad feared their relatively modest wages would be diminished and (yet again) revolted.
Sir Garfield Sobers was in tears recently when he talked about the latest crisis — this time involving the sacking and subsequent reinstatement of coach Phil Simmons. “I never made a single run for myself,’’ said Sobers. “I made all the runs for the West Indies.’’
But in the context of modern cricket, the great all-rounder seems hopelessly sentimental. Why should superstars such as Chris Gayle toil for a relative pittance when they can earn much more during their short careers wearing coloured clothing?
While some in Australia have blamed Gayle and other T20 “mercenaries’’ for what shapes as a hopelessly lopsided series, not even ardent Caribbean cricket fans begrudge them the right to maximise earnings.
As memories of the great West Indies teams fade, memories of the region’s out-sized contribution to the game should not. Australia and the other “haves’’ of world cricket should feel obligated to narrow the Test pay gap. This would mean there is some chance those youngsters awarded first class contracts in Jamaica or Antigua are encouraged to play Test cricket, not hawk their talents elsewhere.
As it is, Sobers’ appeal to the pride of underpaid players seems the only hope this series will be a fair fight.
Originally published as West Indian cricket has plunged into the depths of despair, writes Richard Hinds
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