Growing pains of West Indies cricket

Mar 15, 2019 Editorial

It is perplexing, this West Indies cricket team. In less than a heartbeat, it travels an unflattering journey that traces from the sublime to the ludicrous. When the kaleidoscope of this now completed hosting season is viewed against the cold numbers of performance, there is revelation of an arc that encompasses from the ecstatic to the erratic. For, as is becoming painfully clear with each passing game, this team exhibits more than a few spiritual eccentricities, if there is such a thing in sports.
It is all there: to thrash and then be thrashed: to win a big one in under three days, and then surrender ignominiously for just over three dozen runs. To fall for a mere three score and ten. What should have been a romp tells a tale of two teams in one body. Yes, it is a different format, but when these embarrassments occur, the fear factor disappears into the mysteries of what is, and what could be.
Other teams that were straightening up to take notice, breathe a sigh of relief: a mirage; a flash in the pan; a blip on the radar of world cricket. They are up to their usual sorry ways. That would be the West Indies team. This must be guarded against, turned on its head. There is only one way to do so: application, dedication, execution. There was not any of these in St Kitts; not a glimmer of either presence or panache. It is one thing to be outplayed, another to be outed. Say it is not so fellas. Come on! Help the faithful believers to hold their heads high.
Sad to behold. Sad because this tapestry of talent and toughness evidences the former, but self-destructs with the latter, when push comes to shove, when the mettle is tested and stretched to the breaking point. There are the back-to-the-wall, digging deep down, in-the-face resistance and flair on occasion; this is better than before and has been long awaited.
The problem is that the model of consistency, of a trajectory that rises above promise and circumstances, ever so often, and in the most excruciating and inexplicable ways, withers in the testing fires of combat, before kindred Ninja spirits. When gladiatorial presences are called for in the Amphitheatre of challenge, there is that now all too familiar procession and retreat to the barren wastes of the pavilion.
The arc of ascendancy interrupted, the fevers of excitement truncated, the glorious memories of an even more glorious yesteryear reduced to bewilderment and forlorn hope. The loyal spectators in the region have lived on the edge of hope for a long time.
That is part of the agony. Those glorious memories of the most dashing spectacular history in the annals of the game hover like an albatross over the heads of players and administrators and spectators. The first two must rise up and measure up; on the watchers’ part, there is more and more of the pent-up. What should be! What must be!
The players have this incomparable pantheon of heroes, some long gone, all still swooned over, in whose footsteps they are expected to follow. And closely, unfailingly, too. It is a case of too many shadows and too many giant footsteps to fit. It is at once unfair and unlikely; perhaps, unhealthy as well. Those ghosts of old can be suffocating; today’s teams have to look forward, shine their own light in their own way. But light they must, and more brightly, more frequently, and more promptly.
For their part, administrators in the region have the most intricate of responsibilities: competing rivalries, domestic (national) demands, suspected biases, a thin slate from which to operate, and an uninspiring history within to overcome. They have not. They have failed the game. The veteran spectators can testify for they are left wondering: again? How come? Who? If this continues, the answer could be: not me! And no more; as in not here.

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