Thanks for the runs

April 14, 2004

Thanks for the runs, Bri-Bri. What presented itself was merely a window of opportunity that only geniuses can seize with the blinking of that particular eye.

Up to 30 years ago, such a cricketing world record would have brought a great outpouring into the streets, serenaded by steelbands, our divine musical gift to the world. Because that's the way we signal the celebrating of any olympian accomplishment achieved by a son of the soil.

Imagine 400 runs in a single test match, the most ever scored by anyone in the entire history of test cricket, and not a drum was heard in the city of Port-of-Spain.

In recent times there have been searching questions about the performances of our cricketers, about the captaincy of our team, about the inconsistency and lack of commitment of our players, about the righteousness of our selectors, about the indiscipline of our players and so and so forth, but not one single word about our general abject loss of passion for the game.

In the 50s and the 60s, people from as far off as Toco, Manzanilla, Mayaro, Cedros, Penal and Fyzabad, etc would line up in their thousands outside the Queen's Park Oval from the break of dawn, some from the night before, with their bake and buljol sandwiches and their rotis in hand, to witness the first ball of a test match. The passion with which we, all of us, viewed this game was legendary.

We created mythology as we viewed from the stands. One can recall the power of the mythology that surrounded the classic 16 runs scored by Lawrence Rowe, Sir Lawrence of Sabina, at his first appearance at the Oval. From rumshop to rumshop, those 16 strokes were described with vivid imagination by those who "were there."

We supported, in those past days, with a gusto that was comparative to our then working-class hearts and sinews. That was what cricket meant to us, a game of bat and ball and grit and character. And most of all, the players knew this and therefore played with that level of passion and, in turn, expected a similar level of passion from us, the supporters, because they and we were all part of the same collective social milieu.

When Charran Singh was given out, erroneously in our view, we rioted at the Oval, we nearly tore the place apart in displaying our anger and disgust at what we viewed as injustice. We recall this not to condone rioting over the decisions of umpires but to signify how passionate we were then.

That level of passion is no longer there within the general populace and therefore cannot be reflected on the pitch for the players are of the very same populace.

Today, cricket probably is no longer the game closest to the hearts of our youth, the social strata that makes the difference; probably basketball is, despite the fact that cricket is still the game that is most likely to transport a Caribbean individual from being a nonentity to being recognised by the world.

We seem no longer obsessed with the game and our trivial connection to it is best exemplified by the mulatto Carib girls in bikinis and the high-class professional posses waving flags and dancing in the stands. But if that's the sum total of were we are, then we shall have to accept it for what its worth and move on.

But will the 400 silence the detractors? For example, will the venom with which Colin Croft called for Lara's head ever be dissipated? We guess not. Lara cannot motivate anyone, Croft claims, and he insists that Lara's second tenure as captain is worse than the first.

Thirty years ago someone like Croft would have been declared persona non-grata, not by the State, but by the people at large. His presence here would have been made "uncomfortable" not because he is critical but because he has been consistently destructive rather than constructive in his criticisms.

Imagine, on the very day that Lara makes 400 in a test match, the Newsday carried an article in which the likes of Richie Richardson says that "Lara has failed as a leader of men" and that if he Richardson were captain he would "encourage them (the players) to be positive, to work hard and to put aside the negative things."

Those words describe exactly what Richardson did not and could not do when he was the captain. In fact, the very demise of West Indian cricket began when Desmond Haynes was bypassed and the captaincy was bestowed on Richardson by the board.

The board wished not to continue having militant captains like Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards and so ignored the natural order of things, thereby robbing youths like Sherwin Campbell and other potential openers of having the experience of playing and learning and honing their skills alongside the likes of someone with the caliber of Haynes. We are still paying for that crucial and spinal mistake.

Richardson, the "Bwoard Buoy," as he was referred to by none other than Curtley Ambrose, never had a clue as to what was required and moved from one muddle to another and another until even his personal game fell apart and became a virtual disaster. Then he crawled away whelping and whining that Lara undermined his captaincy.

The author of the Newsday article seemed unaware that Lara, in an interview, responded to that nonsense about "undermining."

Lara said that it was most hurtful and astonishing to hear that he craved captaincy so deeply that he undermined a previous captain and underperformed to the detriment of West Indian cricket. Lara intoned that everything that he has ever done in his entire life since the early days under the guidance of his deceased father, Bunty, has been for West Indian cricket.

And with that we agree undoubtedly. The great ones never underperform. They may misread a particular moment in a game. They may be forced at some point to attempt to seize the "bowling" by the scruff of the neck, so to speak, and end up being dismissed cheaply... that is cricket. But the great ones never deliberately underperform.

The 400 will not change the standard of play of the present team. It can only motivate them for a while. Nothing will change until and unless each one inculcates the discipline to work on the technical aspects of their game on their own, as a matter of course.

What, nevertheless, impressed us at Antigua on this occasion and augurs well for the future was the conscious effort to dispel any reverting to "calypso cricket," that careless, gay abandon that, in the past, stepped into our game immediately after players attained the milestone of 50 or 100 runs.

We can only hope that that has been laid to rest forever.