The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again?) of West Indies Cricket
Figure 1 Cricket success has eluded the West Indies in recent years
It is surely the unalienable right of any sports fan to complain about his or her team’s performance. But there is one group of supporters that possibly have greater justification for their grumbling than any other. For a long time, the West Indies cricket team was at the pinnacle of the sport. But those days seem a long time ago right now. There are not many punters that would use their Vegas betting app to back the current lot.
A team representing the West Indian islands can be traced back to the late 19th century, although the first recognized matches came a little later, during the 1920s. Steady progress was made up until the outbreak of WW2 before play resumed in 1948 when the MCC (for all intents and purposes, the England team) toured the Caribbean. By the 1950s the rise of West Indian cricket was evident.
Many cricket fans of a certain age will look back fondly on the domination of the West Indies during the 1970s and 1980s. But the stars who took the game by storm in those decades could only have developed thanks to the emergence and success of their compatriots in the years following the war.
Garry Sobers is the standout name of that team of the 1950s and 1960s but the West Indies as a whole began to beat what had been the previous powerhouses of the sport in England and Australia. By the time a new generation of players came through in the 1970s, the West Indies were considered the best in the world.
Cricket was very different in the 1970s compared to today’s franchise leagues and shorter formats of the game. But the West Indies won the first-ever World Cup in 1975 – in the one-day, 50-over version of the sport – and also dominated the traditional and more respected test format.
By the end of the 1970s, the West Indies were the undisputed kings of cricket. There had been a long history of incredible batters, by then led by Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd, but the team were even more well known for its fearsome four-man fast bowling attack. Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, and Malcolm Marshall demolished opposing batting orders during the decade.
This bowling attack struck fear into every opponent and led the West Indies to a then-record streak of 11 consecutive test victories in 1984 and helped beat England (the home nation of the sport) 5-0 in successive test series. When more incredibly talented fast bowlers, like Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, emerged in the mid to late 1980s, it seemed as though the West Indies would be the team to beat for all time.
But a series of factors from the 1990s onwards changed things entirely. The West Indies no longer dominated the sport but became almost the joke team of cricket. As the sport aggressively welcomed the transformation into a true professional game and other wealthier countries and regions prospered, cricket in the Caribbean stalled and left the once-legendary team behind.
There are a number of reasons why the West Indies fell from grace. All teams go through fallow periods – and the West Indies team arguably enjoyed a conveyor belt of talent for far longer than a small region should have hoped. But there were fewer players coming through showing the promise of Sobers, Marshall, and Walsh. Other sports became more popular as the Caribbean increasingly looked to the US rather than the Commonwealth.
Poor management of the game in the Caribbean didn’t help, as the few promising players there were became disenchanted with the way the sport was run. Inconsistent team selections, negligence on behalf of Cricket West Indies – the governing body – and lack of investment in infrastructure all left the West Indies sliding down the international rankings. England, India, and Australia were now the power nations in cricket and the West Indies was left to fight it out with emerging test nations like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and later on, Afghanistan.
A quick glance at the current ICC rankings shows that there is still much to do when it comes to test cricket and even the one-day format of the game, where the West Indies once beat all comers. Recent test series against Australia and England have brought horribly familiar results, with the team way behind the top nations in both the ODI and test formats. But there is still hope in the newest format of the game.
T20 cricket has revolutionized the sport in the last decade or so, as fans flock to packed-out stadiums to watch what is regarded as a much more exciting, action-packed version of the sport play out. This is where the money is these days in the game and one of the criticisms of Cricket West Indies – its overemphasis on T20 – might actually turn out to be the saving of the sport in the Caribbean.
This concentration on the shortest format of the game has produced players who are no longer comfortable playing test cricket. But the West Indies do rank highly for T20 and has started to produce players that specialize in the format. The Caribbean Premier League is starting to become one of the best franchise leagues in the world and this will only help with the development of players from the region.
Figure 2 Opposing fans have enjoyed the obvious attractions of the West Indies – as well as a good opportunity for a win
Although much of the attention on the recent T20 World Cup was centered on the US entering the game’s consciousness as co-host, it can also be considered a success for the West Indies. Not only was the West Indies the other host of an event introducing cricket to a wider public, the team won all four opening group games before exiting only just before the final four.
If the West Indies can capitalize on that relative success and get its organizational ship in order, as far as Cricket West Indies goes, there might be further hope for the immediate future. Producing players to the standard of Marshall and Richards may be asking too much – but there is a chance that the West Indies could become a real force in cricket once more.
