Three historic days; WI Cricket and WI Character

Apr 10, 2016 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols
By the time this week’s ‘Countryman’ is published, other writers and sports commentators will have voiced their

thoughts and reactions about the recently-concluded ICC World Twenty20 (T20) in India, particularly the final encounter between West Indies and England.
As stated in an earlier article, although I love the game, I am not a true cricket aficionado. But I greatly appreciate the game’s ingenuous character and its role in helping to nurture a still-incipient Caribbean identity. Wait, it gets more dramatic.
Sports in general and cricket in particular have always brought West Indians together and engendered pride in the Caribbean psyche. It’s a cultural expression which has become a kind of regional glue – before the West Indies Federation, before Carifta, before Caricom, and before the independence of any Caribbean nation.
As a child I remember that my father loved the game even in sober reflection and that my mother enjoyed singing ‘Cricket lovely cricket’ in happy reminiscence of the day in June 1950 when the West Indies trounced England by 326 runs at no less a ground than hallowed Lord’s.
This happened at a time when the British Empire was dwindling, and the West Indian presence in the motherland was just beginning to be felt. The staid British were treated to a mild explosion of Caribbean-style celebration led by two young calypsonians, Lord Kitchener and Lord Beginner, who eulogized the victory in song. The legendary C.L.R. James had said that our independence and national awareness would be shaped only after the West Indies beat England at home at the game they had invented. That’s how much it means to us.
Back in 1992, nineteen years after the signing of the Chaguaramas Treaty which established Caricom, I was covering Carifesta Five for The Chronicle newspaper. At the cultural extravaganza, held in Trinidad and Tobago that year, I was struck by a comment renowned Barbadian literary icon, George Lamming, made about Caribbean integration. He’d stated that regional integration was already happening as far as the ordinary people were concerned, symbolized for example by the solidarity that West Indies cricket fosters among the masses, adding that it was only the politicians who didn’t seem to recognize that.
Lamming’s comment then, as now, has unquestionable merit, although regional leaders have long observed and declared this nexus. West Indies captain Darren Sammy was clearly moved by the support of Caricom heads, including the motivational message his team received last Sunday from Grenadian Prime Minister Keith Mitchell hours before the now historic final against England, even as he spoke of the letdown he felt at not receiving similar sentiments from the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).

In my time, from the 1960s onward, it was listening on radio or walking the few blocks to Bourda for international cricket matches. Many such encounters involving the W.I. team took place over those years, but three of them stand out for me, between 1975 and 2016. And maybe not surprisingly all were limited overs or T20 events. Maybe they stand out also because the joy, the unanimity, and the overflow of Caribbean fervour, sometimes verging on jingoism, are more concentrated, and therefore more effectively demonstrate these passions than in the longer first class and test matches.
I was at the Cyril Potter College of Education in June 1975 when, in the finals of the inaugural ICC World Cup (a 60-over tournament) hosted by England, West Indies whipped Australia. The victory was led by Clive Lloyd’s captain’s innings of 102, and further highlighted by the Caribbean side’s spectacular fielding capped by five run-outs when the Aussies batted. Although the atmosphere of that final was less electric than that of the 2012 and 2016 T20 matches, I remember the tremendous pride I and the CPCE guys felt at the outcome. It was a sentiment shared from Jamaica to Guyana and set the tone for later limited overs matches.
In October 2012, West Indies celebration turned South Korean when Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy and company went ‘Gangnam Style’ after their first-ever win against Sri Lanka in Colombo as I watched in Inagua, Bahamas. Talk about being inter-connected! And it didn’t bother me too much that there were no Guyanese players in the team. (I sigh, and remember when once there were six Guyanese in a West Indies squad) It was our team’s first world title in more than 30 years since the second World Cup win in 1979, again under Clive Lloyd’s captaincy.
Then came last Sunday’s glorious double-win, and I’m sure that although we couldn’t hear it, the sound of victory and the outrageous cacophony of joyful Caribbean accents merged across oceans, from Kingston to Kolkata, and reverberated with the roars of 60,000 cricket fans in the Eden Gardens stadium. It was Caribbean carnival in India. First were our girls, with teenager Hayley Matthews and skipper Stafanie Taylor blazing the path for Britney Cooper and Deandra Dottin to complete. Then there were our boys, and it was Marlon Samuels blazing for a young Bajan giant named Carlos Braithwaite to close off. And how!
Those four balls, those four sixes, were not just cricket – they were life – struggle, survival, and the overcoming of odds as in life itself. Hear how British sports writer Paul Hayward described that devastating four-ball punctuation. “His (Brathwaite’s) first six sent a shiver of trepidation through England. The second was a punch in the guts. The third rendered a West Indies victory inevitable. The fourth was entirely unnecessary…” Entirely unnecessary?
I don’t think so. Be in Brathwaite’s shoes. His head is cool but his blood is boiling. Is the field closing in and the ground becoming claustrophobic? All fear, all doubt, has to be removed. The ball has to clear the field; heck, maybe even the ground. West Indian style is intrinsic to West Indian cricket. He swings. And as the ball disappears into the stands, West Indian emotion soars with it to another level.  No Gangnam Style now. It’s the Caribbean beat to “Champion! Champion!”
Over the past week I’ve looked at last Sunday’s Eden Gardens highlights at least a dozen times. Georgetown’s pushcart music vendors have kept me head-bobbing as I lip-synch to DJ Bravo’s new West Indies anthem in and around the market squares. I’m high on maroon outfits and Caribbean rhythm; even the brewing clash between Caricom heads and the WICB can’t bring me down, at least not in the foreseeable future.
By the way, don’t, absolutely don’t, forget our Under-19 boys now. Shimron Hetmyer and his youngsters are as much deserving as their more senior counterparts. And spare a thought for England’s Ben Stokes. What a way to make history!
What a year 2016 has been so far for Windies cricket and West Indian identity. Could it get even better? Don’t doubt for one minute that it can.

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