“How did West Indies Cricket get here?”

Jul 03, 2023 Sports

---

Comment by COLIN CROFT, former West Indies Cricketer and ICC CWC 1979 winner, on West Indies’ elimination ICC CWC 2023, after losing to Scotland in the Super Sixes of ICC CWC 2023 Qualifying Tournament. 

Kaieteur Sports – Great sadness, tremendous disappointment, utter confusion, ‘blue vex’ anger, acute embarrassment, and so many other unprintable words, can be used by all West Indies supporters, and former WI players like me, Colin Croft, too, after West Indies failed to qualify for ICC CWC 2023.

This is the very first time, since its inception in 1975, that the West Indies would not be appearing in the final, proper segments of the International Cricket Council’s premier event; its 50 overs World Cup.

But the main question is this: How the hell did we get here? What really happened?

Back in 2018, West Indies barely qualified for ICC CWC 2019, thanks to the rain that probably robbed Scotland back then.   Now Scotland had turned the tables and tightened the screws into West Indian backs too.  Have we not learned anything in the last four years to enhance our main cricketing product for world championships standards?  Or are we looking in that great suspense film Director Alfred Hitchcock-like mirrors, and fooling ourselves as to what we can actually see?

The greatest irony is that only about ten days ago, on June 23, 2023, all knowledgeable West Indian supporters and players alike, celebrated the 44th anniversary of West Indies winning ICC CWC 1979, the 2nd such consecutive winning stanza, when West Indies beat England by 92 runs in that 60-overs final.  What tremendous euphoria we all had back then.

Regardless of what you may have thought of them, T&T’s Dr. Eric Williams, Barbados’ Sir Errol Barrow, Guyana’s Forbes Burnham, Antigua & Barbuda’s Vere Bird and especially Jamaica’s Michael Manley, and all other Caribbean leaders too, plus cultural icons like Bob Marley, The Mighty Sparrow, Lord Kitchener, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, David Rudder and so many others, joined fully in the massive 1979 celebrations too, in London and in the Caribbean.  Those celebrations heralded what was the best cricket team that the cricket world had ever seen.

That is probably still so.  So what the hell has happened to West Indies cricket since then?

From that 1979 Final, Collis King’s absolutely majestic 86 from 66 balls (ten 4s; three 6s), in a partnership with (Sir) Vivian Richards that realized 139, will live forever.  For probably the only time in his cricketing life, (Sir) ‘Smoking Joe’ Richards, very intelligently, took a back seat, fully understanding that “Kingdom” was at full throttle.    As one headline suggested, ‘Collis King leaves Vivian Richards in the shade.’    Quite so.  That Collis King innings of 86, in its full context, is STILL the best ODI innings I have ever seen.

(Sir) Vivian Richards’ superbly calculated innings of 138 n.o. is still celebrated by those who either played or witnessed it.  Many still ponder as to (Sir) Viv’s arrogance, at pulling England fast bowler Mike Hendricks’ last delivery of West Indies’ innings into the Tavern Stand, at Lords, where most of the West Indian supporters had bunkered, for a lofty six.

Standing at the non-striker’s end, I had a first-hand view of that excellence, as West Indies totalled 286 – 9, in 60 overs, after being 99 – 4 at one stage, with Gordon Greenidge (9), Desmond Haynes (20), Alvin Kallicharran (4) and captain Clive Lloyd (13), all back in the changing room cooling their heels.  To put that match-saving and match-winning partnership of King and Richards into real context, all of the West Indies fast bowlers made no score (0), and wicket-keeper Deryck Murray made 5.

Thereafter, fast Bowlers Joel Garner’s toe-crushing ‘yorkers’ – 5 for 38 from 11 devastating overs – plus Michael Holding’s truly frugal input; 2 – 16 from 8 overs; and even my, Colin Croft’s, 3 – 42 from 10 overs, including the last English wicket to fall – Mike Hendricks out bowled – put paid to any of England’s hopes, as they were dismissed for 194, to lose by 92 runs.

West Indies even went to the 1983 ICC CWC Final too, when bare complacency allowed Kapil Dev’s India to win with a middling total of 183, the West Indies inexplicably subsiding for only 140.  That stunning upset in 1983 was the very last time that West Indies had been in an ICC CWC Final.   Could that loss have been the catalyst of the steep fall that has brought West Indies to its knees and the ignominy of Zimbabwe 2023?

How did West Indies cricket drop so precipitously in 44 years to a point where the winners of the first two stanzas of ICC CWC, in 1975 and 1979, cannot even come out victoriously from a qualifying tournament for ICC CWC 2023?   What the hell has happened here?

Many have suggested that using T-20 cricket; CPL, IPL, BBL etc; to prepare to play 50 overs cricket, is probably the greatest culprit here.  Except for the two wicket-keepers, Nicholas Pooran and captain Shai Hope, none of the present West Indies cricketers in Zimbabwe looked fit enough, or focused enough, to bat for periods longer than 20 overs.  Maybe there is something in that 20 overs for 50 overs theory, eh?

Whatever happens, things cannot go on like this anymore.  In 2029, just six years from now, it will be 50 years since West Indies will have won the ICC Cricket World Cup back in 1979.  Could the West Indies retool and rebuild, with a relatively new Cricket West Indies administration running its cricket, in the next four years or so, to ICC CWC 2027, in time to be a genuinely good unit, to factor and feature heavily, and successfully, in 2027?

Already, Trinidad & Tobago’s present Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Rowley, has come out firing bazookas and Exocet missiles, plainly implying that something, maybe many things, drastic or otherwise, have got to be done about West Indies Cricket.

I am also very sure that the actual real leader of the very beautiful Caribbean Community and Guyana, Barbados’ Prime Minister, Madame Mia Amor Motley, will definitely be conferring with her counterparts in T&T when they meet this week to celebrate CARICOM’s inception back in 1972-73; yes, 50 years already; as to what should, probably must, be done about the present state of West Indies cricket.

Perhaps a neutral voice could shed some guiding light, and have a final say, on West Indies cricket now.

Virender Sehwag, former Indian opening batsman, and ICC CWC 2011 Winner, offered his thoughts on West Indies’ present 2023 demise in Zimbabwe:

“What a shame it is that West Indies have failed to qualify for ICC CWC 2023.  It just shows that talent alone is not enough.  These situations need much focus, proper man management and to be free from internal politics.  The only solace is that there is not any lower that West Indies cricket can sink to from here.”

Many people who support West Indies cricket sincerely hope that Virender Sehwag is correct with that last thought, but many are not so sure either!

 

 

---

• and all other Caribbean leaders too, Antigua & Barbuda's Vere Bird and especially Jamaica's Michael Manley, Barbados' Sir Errol Barrow, Bunny Wailer, David Rudder and so many others, Guyana, Guyana's Forbes Burnham, ICC CWC 2023, Lord Kitchener, Peter Tosh, plus cultural icons like Bob Marley, Sports, T&T's Dr. Eric Williams, The Mighty Sparrow, West Indies

---