Can West Indies recover from 15 years of gloom?
Mon, Oct 5, '15
If you have been to a cricket match in the Caribbean, you will know what we are talking about.
Rambunctious fans pack the stands, or the banks, in their thousands, swaying to a rhythm of their own, beating drums or blowing horns, and occasionally screaming advices to visiting batsmen and bowlers.
That vibrant atmosphere is unique to West Indies cricket fans and Clive Lloyd, captain of their hugely successful team of the late 1970s and 1980s, described it beautifully in Simon Lister’s Fire in Babylon, a book inspired by the documentary of the same title.
Lloyd recalled leaning on his bat at the non-striker’s end during the Test match at The Oval “and inhaling the exuberant buzz that only a West Indian cricket crowd far from home can create”.
He asked: “How could we not try and do our best?”
Sadly, that question is not being asked often in West Indies cricket these days. Few in the establishment or the team actually seem to care about the fans these days as they — officials and cricketers with bloated egos — fight their battles out in the open.
Fans, who once wrote calypsos eulogising their magnificent cricketers, can only shrug their shoulders as tours are cut short due to player strikes and vengeful officials rule with a heavy hand, clamping down on anyone who refuses to toe their line.
