The heart bleeds for West Indies. It fears for world cricket.
The fact that West Indies will go into the Super Sixes stage of the ICC World Cup qualifier with no points from Group A has left them needing to produce a series of miracles to make it to the ICC Cricket World Cup in India later this year. A few decades ago, this would have been a breeze for West Indies. Then again, back then, they would never have left themselves in such dire straits.
Coming in the wake of a defeat to Zimbabwe, victory over the Netherlands was all but sealed. But Logan van Beek had other ideas. His brazen hitting helped the team tie the scores and force a Super Over, where he slammed 30 runs off Jason Holder and then claimed two wickets off successive deliveries to complete the heist.
Now, we are left clinging to a slender thread in the hope that the West Indies find the will and the way to get to the World Cup in India. It is impossible to think of a FIFA World Cup finals without Brazil, or the All Blacks not featuring in the Rugby World Cup. But the possibility of West Indies missing the Cricket World Cup is acquiring larger-than-life proportions.
For years, cricket fans have willed West Indies on. But now, they will need more than a prayer. With one of its most intense and passionate units struggling to stay afloat in the ICC World Cup qualifiers, it will not be wrong to say that the health of world cricket itself would come under question, and it would not be long before the lucrative T20 format become the kid that preys on it elder siblings.
In 2004, I was on hand to watch a brave ninth-wicket partnership between Courtney Browne and Ian Bradshaw take West Indies to a two-wicket win against England with seven deliveries to spare in the ICC Champions Trophy final at the Oval. We thought that it might be a turning point in West Indies’ cricket history. But that was wishful thinking.
We will have to reconcile ourselves to unlocking our memories of the Calypso cricketers with YouTube videos, perhaps with broadcasters not wanting to risk low TRPs because West Indies no longer command the awe that they did in the past. Will we have to content ourselves with watching amazingly gifted white-ball players from the Caribbean in T20 leagues across the world?
Mention West Indies to anyone who tracked the game in the 1970s, and it is most certain that the eyes will light up while recalling the brand of cricket that they played. There have been times when Sri Lanka and Afghanistan have entertained fans in some parts of the world, but no team has been as consistent or as dominant in one-day internationals as Clive Lloyd’s sides were back then.
The West Indies evoked fear in the minds of the opposition, a side that made their rivals feel that they were little more than punching bags. Things changed perhaps in 1996 when the team was bowled out for 93 by Kenya when chasing 167 in the Wills World Cup in Pune. Of course, a few days later, they beat Australia in Jaipur only to lose to the same opposition in the semi-final in Mohali.
Back then, as head of the sports team at The Pioneer, I had to tell a young colleague to believe that he could do it. I could sense the panic in his voice when he called me from Pune and said that he feared he could not write a report on an event of such magnitude. I told him to take a short walk and return to pour his emotions out. He produced a memorable piece or two.
I can relate to his nerves now. Never did I expect to be lamenting the steep decline of the West Indies cricket team. Of course, we knew that the team were only a pale shadow of their predecessors. But who would have imagined West Indies slipping twice on banana peels in the World Cup qualifier and threatening to bow out of the race several months before the first ball was bowled in India?
West Indies boasted phenomenal leaders like Sir Frank Worrell, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Clive Lloyd and Sir Vivian Richards, whose aura held the team together over several generations. The region is home to countless powerful batters and fearsome fast bowlers, whose names could fill up whole pages. Nobody would have reckoned that things would come to such a pass.
Is that legacy too much to bear for the present lot? It is best to leave the post-mortem and the task of finding a leader, who can hold the regional team together as one in the manner of Worrell, to another day, but we mourn the downward spiral that the West Indies team has been on to plunge its fans – and world cricket – into gloom.
Perhaps it is time to nurse one’s heart and prepare it for the inescapable reality. Even though the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow without any doubt, is not going to be easy to pick oneself up, flick the dust off the clothes and move on in the belief that all will be well with West Indies, and consequently, cricket as we knew it.
