“Happy New Year 2015 – Not much have changed in West Indies cricket from 1975 to 2015!”

Dec 28, 2014 Sports

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Colin E. H. Croft

Happy New Year 2015! West Indies cricket certainly needs 2015 to be better than 2014!
The continual need of reconstruction, on and off the field, is so necessary, as much rhetoric and bad, caustic, poisonous karma have traversed our cricket firmament since WI pulled out of India weeks ago.
Hopefully, some recent demands, developments and selections will be adjusted, even reversed, and adapted to ensuing external stimuli.
Losing Test No. 1 v South Africa massively, by an innings and 220 runs, has not helped WI’s horizons. Test No. 2 is also already evolving as being as difficult for WI as was No. 1!
Great noises have been made on the sacking and dropping of Trinidad & Tobago’s Dwayne Bravo as WI’s ODI captain, replaced by talented, inexperienced Barbadian Jason Holder, with WI’s next ODI series, after SA, being games in ICC’s premier competition, World Cup 2015.
So, as the cricket world salivates for its next championship, cast your minds back to the period just before WI’s 1979 defence of its, and ICC CWC’s, inaugural success of 1975.
Can you recall WI cricket’s situation back in 1978/9? Things were just as chaotic, in disarray, as it is now!
Late 1978/early 1979, leading up to ICC CWC 1979 in England, all WI players who were contracted to, or participated in, Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, were effectively, officially, removed; banned; from playing official cricket for WI, due only to our participation in WSC.
That is fact. Check!
The three most senior cricket administrators in the Caribbean then, Jeffrey Stollmeyer, (Sir) Clyde Walcott and Peter Short, were openly, vocally adamant that any players who had participated in WSC in 1977/8 and 1978/9 should never play for WI’s official team again!
After all, a quite strong 2nd WI XI had toured India in 1978/9, while most of WI’s 1st XI were involved at WSC in Australia. Back then, WI teams were relatively comparable, 1st just obviously better than the 2nd.
That 2nd team, though, playing in India, led by Alvin Kallicharran, comprised some excellent cricketers. Indeed, they certainly gave India a run for its money, much more than India had bargained for.
The hosts in 1978/9, including its then top stars – Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, Bishen Singh Bedi, Bhagwath Chandrasekhar, Mohinder Amarnath, Dilip Vengsarkar and Gundappa Viswanath – only just beat WI’s supposedly 2nd team, in six very tough Test matches; 1-0!
WI’s squad in India 1978 was, arguably, as good as, if not better than, present day WI in SA:
Alvin Kallicharran, Sew Shivnarine, Faoud Bacchus (Guyana); David Murray, Alvin Greenidge, Malcolm Marshall, Sylvester Clarke, Vanburn Holder (Barbados); Basil Williams, Errol Brown, Herbert Chang (Jamaica); Hillary “Larry” Gomes, Raphick Jumadeen, Randall Lyon (T&T), Derick Parry (Nevis & Leeward Islands) and Norbert Phillip (Dominica & Windward Islands).
Additionally galling to WICB then was that Kerry Packer had arranged for WSC Australia to have a full tour of the Caribbean early in 1979, playing at traditional venues, under similar conditions of official tours.
Crowds, wanting to see their “real” heroes, WSC West Indies, turned out by their tens of thousands, but several fracases and serious riots also occurred on that tour, none more damaging than that in Guyana!
Half of the stands at Bourda Oval were destroyed by paying patrons who thought that conditions, after much rain, were good enough for actual play while players and administrators did not.
Had it not been for then Guyana’s Chief of Defence Force Norman McClean, also on Guyana’s Cricket Board, and his troops, that WSC WI v WSC Australia game would not have been completed at Bourda!
Anyway, at the very last moment, when it seemed that WI would indeed defend that 1975 title with the supposedly 2nd team, great sensibilities and tremendous political pressures eventually prevailed.
Especially vocal back in 1979 for our eventual inclusions were Michael Manley, Jamaica’s Prime Minister, and Forbes Burnham, Guyana’s President, just as present-day St. Vincent & Grenadines’ Prime Minister Ralph Gonzalves and Grenada’s Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Mitchell, are now about Bravo and Co.
Hopefully, present leaders will have similar effects and results!
Incidentally, only four players of that WI team to India 1978; Bacchus, Gomes, Kallicharran and Marshall; were selected for 1979’s ICC CWC defending, and again victorious, squad. Only Kallicharran made final XI’s for games of that 1979 triumph.
The difference between WI in 1978/1979 and 2014/5 is that, back then, WI had two things to defend; honour and a championship; and were not allowed to send just any team, but it’s best team, to represent seven million.
That is not so now. In December 2014, WI is rated No. 8 of twelve world teams in ODI’s. Only Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Ireland are rated lower. There is nothing to defend but honour!
So, WI cricket could indeed be looking to the future, 2019 and beyond, for it would be a major miracle if WI were to win ICC CWC 2015. Even getting to semi-finals would be an achievement!
Firstly, though, WI must try hard to neutralize SA at Port Elizabeth in Test No. 2. Enjoy!

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