By the time I was old enough to follow West Indies cricket, it had already passed its golden age. At that stage, though seriously competitive with Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Richie Richardson and Carl Hooper in their ranks, they did not seem worthy of the whispered reverence that our parents' generation treated them with. The Windies only waned further as I added to my cricket watching years. Simultaneously, via cricket writing celebrating the supreme sportsmen that had made up the West Indies cricket team in the 1970s and 80s and rivetting documentaries like Fire In Babylon, I couldn't fault the starry eyes that the name West Indies produced in the most casual of senior cricket fans.
However the fact of *this* West Indies team being nothing compared to *those* West Indian teams hasn't stopped me from being a lifelong fan. This cricketing nation, which isn't actually a nation but a collection of separate countries united for the sport, still has way too much elan to let minor things like winning or losing come in the way of appreciation for what they are.
If individuality was the sole criteria for cricketing success, West Indies would be still be the undisputed kings. From the shabbily crabby Shivnarine Chanderpaul to the supremely elegant Brian Lara, the main attraction of watching the Windies play is their artistic interpretation of textbook techniques. The basics still adhered to - note how Lara's head stayed rock steady while batting, even as his feet distracted, dancing the bele around the best bowlers in the world - but with an effective panache that can only be classified as West Indian.
Cricket board politics and drastic inconsistency haven't helped their record in the past couple of decades but whenever snooty robot-promoting coaches are about to dismiss them as mere entertainers, they serve up a dose of their surprising brilliance. Having won the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy and the ICC World Twenty20 twice (2012, 2016), the West Indies make it clear that those who write them off, do so at their own peril. As the impotently angry Glenn McGrath of Steve Waugh's legendary 2003 side found out, on their day the Windies can chase down a unprecedented 418 in the 4th innings of a Test Match, no problem.
The West Indies bring that sparkle and joy to their game, which tells of cricket on the beach and the happiness of a life beyond the game. The reason why a quiet and polite middle class Bombay boy named Sachin Tendulkar can idolize, without contradiction, a bowler destroying force like Vivian Richards. Yes, there is the swagger on field but there is clearly a barbecue, a beer and a beaming smile behind it all.
Former West Indies captain, Darren Sammy, once claimed that the West Indies were everyone's 2nd favourite cricket team, ranking only behind their home country's. Very few would disagree. In a game where national pride is often misdirected for ugly political purposes and aggression frequently turns into disrespectful bullying, a group of islands in the Caribbean united only by their flamboyant use of bat and ball represent the sunnier alternative.
[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2019/05/everyones-favourite-2nd-favourite.html]
If individuality was the sole criteria for cricketing success, West Indies would be still be the undisputed kings. From the shabbily crabby Shivnarine Chanderpaul to the supremely elegant Brian Lara, the main attraction of watching the Windies play is their artistic interpretation of textbook techniques. The basics still adhered to - note how Lara's head stayed rock steady while batting, even as his feet distracted, dancing the bele around the best bowlers in the world - but with an effective panache that can only be classified as West Indian.
Cricket board politics and drastic inconsistency haven't helped their record in the past couple of decades but whenever snooty robot-promoting coaches are about to dismiss them as mere entertainers, they serve up a dose of their surprising brilliance. Having won the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy and the ICC World Twenty20 twice (2012, 2016), the West Indies make it clear that those who write them off, do so at their own peril. As the impotently angry Glenn McGrath of Steve Waugh's legendary 2003 side found out, on their day the Windies can chase down a unprecedented 418 in the 4th innings of a Test Match, no problem.
The West Indies bring that sparkle and joy to their game, which tells of cricket on the beach and the happiness of a life beyond the game. The reason why a quiet and polite middle class Bombay boy named Sachin Tendulkar can idolize, without contradiction, a bowler destroying force like Vivian Richards. Yes, there is the swagger on field but there is clearly a barbecue, a beer and a beaming smile behind it all.
Former West Indies captain, Darren Sammy, once claimed that the West Indies were everyone's 2nd favourite cricket team, ranking only behind their home country's. Very few would disagree. In a game where national pride is often misdirected for ugly political purposes and aggression frequently turns into disrespectful bullying, a group of islands in the Caribbean united only by their flamboyant use of bat and ball represent the sunnier alternative.
[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2019/05/everyones-favourite-2nd-favourite.html]
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