After more than a decade in the doldrums, the West Indies sit atop the cricket world again, having lifted the World Twenty20 trophy among deliriously joyful scenes in Colombo. Much has been written over the years about the West Indies fall from the pinnacle of greatness into wretched mediocrity. While the past 15 years have seen moments of success, those moments were fleeting, with the corner never turned and the dawn always false. This time though, it feels different.
Chris Gayle is inarguably the star of the West Indies team and he was brilliant in this tournament, particularly in the semi-final mauling of Australia. Gayle is the man on whom the team most depends and so it is heartening that the West Indies won the World Twenty20 title without any contribution from him in the final. This was a team victory and in their success West Indies have shown what is possible when they have all hands on deck, with everyone is pulling in the same direction. In a telling sign of a unified team, there was palpable joy in the achievements of others — none more entertaining than when his teammates mimed shedding gold-dust off Marlon Samuels. This was the spirit of the West Indies teams of old, and missing for far too long.
The mindset of cricket in the West Indies has been shifting in the right direction for the past couple of years and winning the World Twenty20 title provides a most significant and timely boost. Cricket now has its best chance of once again grabbing the imagination of the Caribbean and regaining its position as a cultural cornerstone.
The release last year of the documentary, Fire in Babylon about the West Indies’ 1974-84 heyday, managed to bottle the spirit that drove Clive Lloyd and later Viv Richards’ West Indies teams to aspire to greatness. The story of West Indies cricket is so compelling that it is impossible not to be stirred by the exploits of Richards, Lloyd, Holding, Greenidge, Garner and the many others who made the West Indies one of the greatest sports teams of all time. Players of the past decade or so, who were old enough to have seen the glory days as fans, but were unable to continue the tradition of excellence, grew disengaged with the past. It became a burden to carry rather than a history to be inspired by. This generation of West Indies cricketers however, have it in them to script their own narrative of success and the captain Darren Sammy at least, is open about being inspired by the movie.
The emergence of the IPL has had an impact on a number of countries’ cricket operations and player-board relationships, but nowhere more so than in the West Indies. Gayle’s desire to put his interests with his IPL team before his commitments to the West Indies was a well-publicized and drawn-out affair. It was, however, hardly the only instance of a West Indies cricketer playing in the IPL while the West Indies were locked in battle somewhere else in the world. That has been a sore point in West Indies cricket, but now the silver lining in those dark clouds has become apparent. A number of West Indies cricketers have hefty contracts with IPL teams and have benefited from being in positive and professional team environments. It is the IPL that trained Kieron Pollard to be a professional cricketer in a manner not possible had he only been playing domestically in the West Indies. Sunil Narine’s $700,000 IPL contract before he had established himself as a West Indies player, raised eyebrows and was distasteful to some, but has no doubt had a galvanizing effect on young cricketers in the West Indies.
Through the mid and late ’90s aging greats Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh tirelessly bowled in losing causes for the West Indies and with no new fast bowlers of quality on the horizon, blame was laid at the doorstep of the NBA. If you were a young 6-foot-5 athlete in the Caribbean, you now wanted to be Michael Jordan, not Michael Holding. The IPL has surely gone some way in changing that back. Even if the West Indies Cricket Board can’t make you a millionaire, the IPL and other assorted cricket leagues can. The path is now clear for a young cricketer if he has the talent and ambition: Riches through the IPL and glory through the West Indies. But then there are those who still know what it’s really all about.
Marlon Samuels even in accepting his man of the match award in the final, said that test cricket was still the ultimate form of the game for him. And on a night when no one would begrudge him anything, the captain Darren Sammy bursting with pride and happiness, was still careful in not getting carried away; stating that winning this tournament was merely a step in the right direction, “I wouldn’t say that we’re back” was his thoughtful riposte at the post-match interview.
Darren Sammy is a man under no illusions about where West Indies cricket stands and how much farther it still has to go. But for now the West Indies fully deserve to celebrate and revel in their position as the world champions in Twenty20 cricket. The West Indies story is exciting and engaging again, and cricket is richer for it.