West Indies cricket: Lament for a lost superpower

I’ve never been much of a one for sympathising with the opposition, particularly in cricket.

Brought to awareness of the great game around the time of Allan Border’s triumphantly vengeful sweep through England in 1989, I learnt that when your enemy is down, you rejoice, and when your enemy falls even lower, you laugh uproariously.

This, I have always been given to believe, is one of the joys of sport: the ability to take pleasure in the misfortune of others, just as they take pleasure in yours. After all, when Australia has gone through the darkest of dark times in the past, the rest of the world never seemed particularly sympathetic.

That time in the late ’80s, of course, was also the heyday of the West Indies, and nothing then seemed less likely than a day coming when I would not only feel depressed about the lamentable state of an opposing cricket nation, but that that cricket nation would be the Windies. And yet here we are. I feel almost as sad about the state of Caribbean cricket as I have when my own country’s been losing. What on earth has happened to me?

For a start, it’s not just a matter of losing. And in fact, the Windies don’t lose all the time. In Twenty20 they’ve got a great team, who defeated South Africa in their recent series. But in the ODIs, and in the Tests, the Proteas laid the Windies over their knee, gave them six of the best, and sent them to bed without dinner.

It was a dispiriting sight, even with the obvious aesthetic pleasures of the batting of AB De Villiers and Hashim Amla, the bowling of Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander and co, to see the paper-thin resistance the once-almighty island collective put up.

Of course there was an exception. In Game 4 of the one-day series, with South Africa having already secured the best of five, the Windies came home with a rush, an explosive knock from Andre Russell seeing them squeak home by one wicket. At the end the side celebrated with cathartic joy, Russell letting out a roar of triumph and relief. It was a glorious moment.

And at the same time it was incredibly sad.

Is this what the West Indies is reduced to? Can one imagine the invincible combinations of the 1980s leaping about in ecstasy at a narrow consolation victory? Would this have satisfied them?

Today, the one-time alpha dogs of world cricket beg for scraps falling from the table, satisfied to win the odd game after the series has been decided, taking pride in a competitive T20 team while its one-day side is trounced and its Test team annihilated.

It’s sad not just because what was once great is now less than mediocre, but because of how great they were, and how they were great. The old West Indian teams didn’t just win, they thrilled as they did it. Those of us who came to cricket at the tailend of their heyday quickly became aware of how glorious their deeds had been.

The 1970s and 1980s brought an era of frightening, exhilarating domination for the Windies. Before that they had been closer to the mortals, but still had a tradition of fierce and exciting cricket, dashing deeds and stunning talent, that went back to the three Ws in the 1950s, and even earlier, to the days of Headley and Constantine in the 1930s, when as new kids on the block the Windies were naturally mostly beaten, but managed to fire the imagination nonetheless.

Ah, but it was that unbeatable combination that Clive Lloyd brought to the world that cemented the legend. Such cricketers as seemed of another world. The fast bowlers, of course – each one terrifying, but having his own distinctive style of terror.

Sleek, subtle Andy Roberts. Mean, gigantic Joel Garner. Michael Holding, smooth, silent and lethal. Later there was the indefatigable Courtney Walsh and the shiver-making Curtly Ambrose, with a stare to make your blood run cold and a hatred of being scored off that pulsed in every ball rearing at your throat and spearing into your stumps.

There were brutal enforcers like Pat Patterson and Colin Croft and Sylvester Clarke. And there was the greatest of them all, Malcolm Marshall, a tiny man possessed of outrageous skill and the bloodthirsty nature of the classic quick.

And when you’d had been brought to your knees by those bowlers, the batsmen would stride out to kick you in the teeth. Clive Lloyd himself was a giant, swinging a toothpick of a bat in a great arc of violent beauty. At the top of the order Gordon Greenidge hit the ball so hard he must have had a grudge against it, and Desmond Haynes almost matched him. Richie Richardson swiped the fastest bowlers the world had to offer into the wild blue yonder from under that wide maroon brim. And all these champions deferred to Viv Richards.

If we leave out Bradman, Viv was probably the most intimidating batsman ever to chew gum – and I’m not even that sure we should leave out Bradman. The moment Richards walked out he made clear in his manner, his gait, his expression that there was one boss on this field and his authority would be absolute.

He never wore a helmet because he wanted people to know that he was out there to hit the ball, not the other way around, and he crushed the spirits of bowlers everywhere with assaults of stunning, audacious, vicious, thunderous aggression.

In Viv was the West Indian way personified: we are here to hurt you, and the quicker you get out of the way the easier it will be for you. The side took the attitude they’d been on the wrong end of in Australia in 1975-76, and turbo-charged it, so that for more than a decade bowlers became cannon fodder and batsmen counted themselves lucky to escape with bones intact.

It’s all so long ago. Now you see flashes of the old Caribbean flair, but the brilliance so often comes in moments of flailing, reckless desperation, rather than supreme confidence. If there’s a batsman who’s capable of generating the intimidatory aura of Richards, it’s Chris Gayle, but there is a man whose most majestic innings must be set beside the myriad occasions of foolish profligacy, and whose loyalty to the cause never seems all that absolute – he’s made as much a name for himself as a gun-for-hire as an international batting star.

Not that he can be blamed, given the shambolic administration of West Indies cricket that seems to possess a unique talent for alienating its most talented players and crippling the already-slim chances of the team in most series. The upcoming World Cup will not feature Dwayne Bravo or Kieron Pollard. The former is the most talented all-round cricketer the Windies have produced in 20 years or more: the latter a mercurial talent who, if erratic, is at least able to inspire supporters with a touch of the old spirit.

They’re being punished for sins of which they may not be innocent, but in which their guilt is shared extremely widely among the on and off-field cast of the West Indian drama – or farce.

It was unpleasant being smashed by the Windies back in the day, but after the pain of defeat had faded one could marvel at the wondrous cricket on show. Moreover, the powerful Windies team made international cricket more colourful, more exciting, more fun. Nowadays watching the Windies brings with it, on most occasions, a dull feeling of inevitability.

Can it be reversed? Signs are not good. The warfare between players and administrators, the backbiting and infighting that seems to dominate West Indies cricket, and the apparently waning interest in the game among the West Indian people themselves, combine to bring on a terrible fear that the woeful performances of the team may be “situation normal” in a permanent sense.

What might happen when veterans like Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Gayle pass into retirement is to shudder at.

But hope springs eternal. There is talent in the ranks, to be sure, and if Andre Russell’s victory roar was a symbol of lowered expectations, it is also an indication that there remains in the Caribbean a spirit that, however downtrodden and bowed, retains the possibility of one day igniting the old fire once more.

It’s in the interests of all in cricket to help light that fire. It’ll be a relief to be burnt again.