Missing from Champions Trophy, WI reach the pits of no hope

London, June 1 4
A week ago, the might of West Indies was on show. Third match in a row, they simply pulverised the opposition, winning by seven wickets. Impressive stuff!
But alas! West Indies were playing in the wrong country. Wrong continent. Playing the wrong team. In a wrong tournament. In a wrong format.
Group of 8 of the world’s top nations have had a good time in the Champions Trophy. West Indies, the T20 world champions, are missing — and they are sorely missed.
West Indies, instead of competing for a top prize in their sport, were routing Afghanistan in a T20I series, 3-0, at home.
The fall of West Indies to No. 9 in ODI rankings is bewildering, and they regularly provide a clue of how they achieved this fall. After winning the T20 series 3-0 against Afghanistan, West Indies again gave a demonstration of freefalling, losing the first ODI by 63 runs. Chasing 213, they were down to 90/7 and then 149/10, failing to tackle the leg-spin of Rashid Khan.
The former players aren’t happy. “It’s really a shame. It is sad,” West Indies bowling legend Curtly Amrose said recently. “It’s not a nice feeling at all, but that’s the way it is. We are not playing as well as we can, so it’s up to us as a nation, and the cricketers themselves, to bring back this tradition we have to get West Indies cricket near the top again.”
The fans aren’t happy. The Oval used to be a West Indian ground. If you’ve watched cricket long enough, you’d remember images from the 1970s and 1980, images of West Indies fans drumming and dancing and drinking in the stands — and occasionally, entering the field. Now the fans are gone. Many of them have been disgusted out of the ground — the abject West Indies teams of recent past have turned them away from cricket.
Priced out
Many of the have been priced out — descendants of the immigrants from the Caribbean islands, a majority of Caribbean origin people living in the UK are in the lower-income categories. The ticket prices, meanwhile, have risen sharply. That has changed the nature of the audiences at the grounds — viewing cricket is expensive. For instance, tickets for the second day of the third Test in Leeds are selling at £175.12 to £351.12 on ticketing websites. This is serious money for a day’s cricket.
“The tickets are cheaper earlier, but they are first put up for sale in November-December,” says Jack Billing, a retired London Transport worker. “But that time is for celebration, and we’re trying to put good food on the table and buy gifts for friends and relatives.”
Billing remembers watching the likes of Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Roy Fredericks, Lawrence Rowe and Michael Holding in action in the 1970, and believes that those days will never return.
Reduced income
Donna, a second-generation Briton of Jamaican descent, works hard for her money as a warden at the cricket, but she’s on a zero hour contract — which means that she’s called to work only when there’s work. No work, no pay. And the poor West Indies team threatens to reduce her income. West Indies will play Tests in England in August-September, and Donna is sharpening her knives. She fears that West Indies will cause her a regular pay cut. “They may last only three days in a Test match, and my income will fall,” says Donna. “And if they play a two-day Test, I’m going to kill them!” Donna likes the teams that fight hard and take a Test match to the fifth day and ensure a complete Test pay package for her.
Pursuing T20 cash
The top West Indies players, on their part, are pursuing solid cash in T20 cricket leagues around the world. Some of them have chosen to play in T20 leagues rather than Tests or ODIs for West Indies. They’ve been blamed and shamed but, realistically, it’s not an ideal scenario when the lightweight T20I leagues offer unimaginably more money for a six-hour game than is offered for five-day Test matches.
Lloyd, the great West Indies captain of the 1970s and 1980s, doesn’t like the fact that the top players don’t represent West Indies. “Players can represent West Indies only if they play in the domestic competitions,” says Lloyd, and adds that if the players prefer to opt out of their West Indies contracts, or don’t play in the domestic competitions, the team misses out. “That is the rule and it’s up to the West Indies cricket board and players to sort it out.”
Pipe dream
Keith ‘the Pipe Man’ Anderson, a good friend of Lloyd, and an all-time great among the fans of West Indies cricket, is 66 and has lost the hope of seeing West Indies great again.
“Every board, when their players are playing in the IPL, has them coming back when they have to play for the nation,” says the Pipe Man. “But not the West Indies board.”
There’s a bigger problem West Indies face than reluctant players — the proliferation, popularity of T20 cricket. West Indians are top stars in the T20 leagues. “In T20 cricket, you can bowl anything!” Anderson exclaims. “Anything! And you can get wickets. But in Test cricket, you’ve got to put the ball in the right place. To score runs, you have to occupy the crease.” Anderson says West Indies always played what’s called cavalier cricket, and that’s why they do well in T20 cricket. But, he says, the players of the past were very good at Test and ODI cricket as well. Today’s West Indies team isn’t.
“You can’t play the same way in ODI and Test cricket. You’ve got to occupy the crease to excel in Test cricket, you’ve got to bowl good line and length to excel in Test cricket,” he adds. “Unless you have proper technique, you can never excel in Test and ODI cricket.”
Low on hope
Some 14 years ago, fighting cancer, Anderson didn’t expect to live to see 2017. When someone suggested to him that West Indies would make a turnaround “within a couple of years”, he could only shake his head in disbelief and amusement. “I didn’t expect to live long then, but I knew that we had no hope for at least 10 years. Now, I find that West Indies have gone from bad to worse. If there’s a revival, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be around to see it.” Also, West Indies’ decline and the rise of Bangladesh means that West Indies could miss more ICC tournaments. And end up playing Afghanistan or Papua New Guinea while the top teams go for ICC’s golden prizes.

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