An Indian victory that changed the course of West Indies cricket history

Wed, Apr 13, '16

Andy Roberts, for long the leader of the attack, used to famously say that whatever the West Indies made, he and his comrade-in-arms would get the opposition out for fewer.

"History does not reveal its alternatives," Columbia Broadcasting System's (CBS) news journalist, Eric Sevareid was fond of saying. But that hasn't stopped the speculation. And so, a whole industry - including books, discussion boards and even youtube channels called 'Alternate or Alternative History' - has arisen to try and cater to those willing to indulge in that kind of conjecture. For those not familiar with this topic, the Collins English Dictionary defines Alternative History as "a genre of fiction in which the author speculates on how the course of history might have been altered if a particular historical even had had a different outcome."

What if Germany had won World War II, for example? How different would be the world we now live in? Would The United States have become the superpower that it is today? Would they be speaking German in Russia? It may be that Hitler's ideology was so repugnant that there is no way it could have survived on such a large scale for any length of time. But even so, how much more would he have harmed civilization had he been allowed to prosper for a while longer?