Cricket, lovely cricket

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Cricket, lovely cricket,
Was at Lords when I saw it.
The bowing was superfine
With those little pals of mine
Ramadhin and Valentine.
  (A calypso from the West Indian victory over England at Lords in 1951)

The current cricket series between  Australia and the West Indies has been
a disaster for the "Windies" as they  are known as here. They have been
destroyed in the four Test matches so far and the Fifth offers the prospect
of the first total white wash between the two nations. Always the Windies
have one at least one test, but the present team is facing historic disaster.

I support the West Indies team of course.  Always for Spartacus; never for
Crassus.  Mind you occasionally I do wonder what life would be like on the
winning side. During the closing debacle of the recent Fourth Test I did
interrupt my vigil and go for a coffee break with my kids.  But I felt bad
at not keeping a vigil over the last rites of the West Indian batting.  It
seemed somehow a failure of solidarity.  So on Tuesday I will turn the set
on and once again keep a watch while the final agony is played out.

There have been post mortems as to what is happening with the West
Indians.  In the 80s they were extremely dominant, but now I think that
even I could almost get some of their batsmen, especially  their captain,
Jimmy Adams, out. However such is the state of sports writing and cricket
writing in particular, that there is a genuine dearth of intelligent
comment on the parlous state of West Indian cricket.  The exception here is
the Englishman Peter Roebuck who writes for the Sydney Morning
Herald.  However even he has put the decline of cricket in the West Indies
down to Antiguan dominance of the selection process and the growth of
cliques within the team.

There have been other reasons suggested such as the influence of the NBA
through USA television.  Michael Jordan is much more of a hero in the West
Indies than any of the current team apparently.  On the other hand the West
Indian commentator, Fazir Mohammed, has claimed that the problem is a lack
of discipline in the wider society.  "Young people", he says, "are no
longer polite. They do not develop character". The paradigm case here seems
to be Brian Lara the one star of the current team.  His is seemingly the
life of a party animal and he is notorious for staying out late and missing
practice etc.

In the wonderfully sexist way of male sport his slump in form is attributed
to the fact that he has his girl friend with him.  She returned to England
for one match and that was the only time he showed any form with the
bat.  So the sexists are claiming that it is true as Rocky's trainer,
Mickey, said in Rocky 1, "Women weaken legs!"

I have never been to the West Indies and it unlikely that I ever will make
it out there, so I cannot offer up an explanation based on personal
observation. I reject of course explanations for the current state of West
Indian  cricket as being due to a fall off in politeness or character.  Nor
do I think that women have weakened the collective legs of the team. There
must instead be something deeply structural at work.

The answer I think lies in a return to a analysis of the reasons why West
Indian cricket used to be dominant.  Here the work of the great Marxist
C.L.R. James is essential reading, for all who think that the relationship
between culture and politics must be studied by revolutionaries.
["Preferably beer in hand in front of the tv, like you" my younger son has
just said looking over my shoulder].

For James, who was a fanatical fan and player of cricket, the game
represented the means by which the former slaves contested the domination
of the master.  In a Hegelian manner he seemed to think of cricket as the
way in which the West Indians worked on the world and thus reversed the
master's victory in the life and death struggle.

Seemingly that is no longer the situation. Cricket is being superceded.
However it might be that the displacement of cricket as the source of
national affirmation and focus for proletarian energy is due to the fact
that the Carribean is being dragged into the American sphere of
influence.  The clearest indication of that process was surely the US
invasion of Grenada. One Empire dies and another is born. Britannia no
longer rules the waves, American sports are now the rage.

Maybe, but there is also an internal element to the whole situation.  I
found the following comment in a letter from the great George Headley to
James.  Headley wrote (23 Feb 1954)

" ...it is not generally realised the almost insuperable obstacles the
average cricketer in the West Indies has to overcome, I was comfortable
compared to many I knew, whose lot was unemployment, half-fed, and in dire
circumstances.  The powers that be made no attempt to help such fellows,
but, when the occasion demands, they are expected to bowl or bat for five
or more days."

So the implication here is that class based poverty prevents many talented
youngsters from coming to the fore. Such poverty would of course be greater
in the present economic down turn. Somehow I find that explanation more
probable than a general female attack on the legs of aspiring cricketers.

regards

Gary