Speech to Sonny Ramadhin Cricket Lecture in the Faculty of Social Sciences of the St Augustine Campus of UWI

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be invited here to the University of the West Indies in Trinidad - an esteemed home of academia and, as one of the host venues of the ICC Cricket World Cup warm-up matches - a recognised home of cricket.

With all the great cricketing personalities present in the Caribbean at the moment, it is a huge honour for me to have been invited to give the fourth Sonny Ramadhin Distinguished Cricket Lecture to honour one of the legends of Trinidad and Tobago cricket.

Sonny Ramadhin's story is a remarkable one. Born into poverty in the village of St Charles, Trinidad he started out learning how to spin a ball by using a lime and through sheer determination, hard work and a reliance on his enormous talent, he became the first East Indian to represent the West Indies on the international stage.

His partnership with Alf Valentine is one of the great spin-bowling legends. In the 1950 Lord's Test when the West Indies registered its first win in England, the pair bowled no fewer than 231 overs between them, taking 18 of the 20 English wickets to fall in the match. The young pair on their first overseas tour were both only just into their twenties.

At Edgbaston in 1957 Ramadhin bowled 98 overs in the second innings and 129 in the match, all of them with his trade-marked pristine white shirt buttoned smartly at the wrist. And they say modern-day bowlers have too onerous a work-load!

It will not surprise you to learn that on the occasion of this great honour I wish to speak to you about the pivotal role of the West Indies in the great game of cricket.

I will argue that West Indies cricket from the sixties to the nineties was the greatest phenomenon in world team sport in the twentieth century.

Please think about that for a moment - it is a very big claim - the greatest phenomenon in world team sport - not just cricket.

I may not ultimately win the argument but I will give it my best shot.

I will then ask and seek to answer two difficult questions:

First, what caused this great phenomenon?

Second, what needs to happen to cause it to happen again?

Before I move on to the era of world domination that followed Sonny Ramadhin's distinguished career, I would like to take a few minutes to recount my own early recollections of West Indies cricket that I think help put this success into context.

I ask you all to step back in time to 1960. I was a 12 year old boy in Melbourne, Australia - passionate about sport, young and thin. At least I am still passionate about sport!

There are landmarks from our youth that we recall with great clarity. I can remember precise details of the train in which Queen Elizabeth passed though our home town in 1953, I can recall watching Australia's Golden Girl, Betty Cuthbert, win the 100 yards final at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, and I know exactly where I was when I heard that JFK had been assassinated. My most vivid childhood memory, however - I remember it as if it happened yesterday - was the famous Tied Test in Brisbane in 1960. I was at cricket practice which came to a grinding halt as thirty young cricket fans gathered around a radio to listen to the last dramatic moments. It was great to watch it replayed here on the screen a few moments ago.

Shortly afterwards, I was at the MCG for the second Test of the series which was, significantly, Ramadhin's last Test and I returned to the same ground in early 1961 for the second day of the celebrated fifth Test.

With my father and brother, I was part of a crowd of 90,800 that day - a Test record which still stands - and I recall the action clearly and fondly.

The day began with Wes Hall batting, and I remember him unleashing an almighty blow that was powerful enough to shatter his bat, causing great hilarity for players and supporters. The West Indies tail didn't stick around for too long which gave the packed stadium a wonderful opportunity to marvel at Wes's bombardment of the Australian openers, Bob Simpson and Colin McDonald. The courageous McDonald deliberately took a number of short-pitched balls on his body and I can recall to this day the thud of the ball and the gasp of the crowd.

My elder brother and I transferred these moments of drama to our own back yard where for hour after hour we would have our own Australia-West Indies Test matches. I always insisted on being Australia - though I assure you that several decades later I am now completely impartial - while my brother was the West Indies team.

My impersonations of the three Australian left-armers - Davidson, Meckiff and Kline (complete with his distinctive kangaroo hop run-up) were a sight to behold. My brother was a budding spinner and would quickly dispense with the quick bowlers to bring on his own version of the legend to whose name tonight's lecture is dedicated. So I played many back yard overs bowled by a young antipodean Sonny Ramadhin impersonator and - at least as I recall it - scored many runs from the bowling off the great man.

60-61 was more than a wonderful summer of cricket - from the backyard to the Test arena. It was memorable as much for the spirit in which the series was played as the sheer brilliance of the participants. It was also the summer in which Australia learned to love West Indies cricket and the way the team played the great and ancient game.

Frank Worrell's team had arrived on a boat from a distant land as exotic foreigners and left a few months later as familiar to us as our own Australian players.

It is no coincidence that a quarter of a million people, including this 12 year old and his family, took to the streets of Melbourne after that fifth Test to say goodbye to the West Indian team.

In his brilliant 1963 book, Beyond a Boundary, CLR James described it as "a gesture spontaneous and in cricket without precedent, one people speaking to another. Clearing their way with bat and ball, West Indians at that moment had made a public entry into the comity of nations."

From CLR James's 'public entry' flowed a period of complete domination.

It was a period of 30 years in which the West Indies conquered the game and earned the right to host this ninth ICC Cricket World Cup.

Let us return to my claim that West Indies cricket from the sixties to the nineties was the greatest phenomenon in world team sport in the twentieth century.

I know that I am preaching to the converted but let us put that claim under serious scrutiny. What were the major achievements of this time?

In the 15 years between March 1980 and May 1995, the West Indies did not lose a single Test series. In that time they played a total of 29 series.

Viv Richards, who led the West Indies in 50 Tests during that time, never once lost a series as captain.

His predecessor, Clive Lloyd, captained West Indies to 36 Test match victories, which was then a record until surpassed by Australia's Steve Waugh, with 41.

In 1984 they completed a winning run of 11 Test matches in a row, beating a 63-year-old record for consecutive wins. That in turn stood for 16 years until surpassed by Australia in 2001.

The ICC did not have the LG Test Championship in place in those days. The man who produced the current table has worked the same system back through the archives. This shows that the West Indies would have first topped the Test Championship from 1964 to 1969, then briefly again in 1978, returning to number one for a decade from 1981 to 1991 for all but seven weeks.

And it wasn't just Test cricket. The West Indies also won the first two ICC Cricket World Cups and made it to the final of the third. In those first two events they won all their games apart from one wash-out, a total of nine ODI victories. And but for a surprise loss at Lord's in 1983 when India beat them, they would be the only side to have won three back-to-back titles, something Australia is now seeking to achieve here in the Caribbean.

Even in the periods when the West Indies were not top of the rankings their top players were still winning matches, either as individuals in domestic or English county cricket or collectively in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket, which was played for two seasons from 1977 to 1979.

During that time the side that Clive Lloyd led against the best players from the rest of the world and Australia won the vast majority of the matches it played, including an 8-2 demolition of an Australia side under Ian Chappell in a one-day series that took place here, in the Caribbean.

There is no doubt the West Indies was a great team for a long period of time. But how do they fare against other great teams across the sporting spectrum?

In soccer, under the leadership of Alex Ferguson, Manchester United dominated the game in England throughout the 1990s when, of course, another local hero, Dwight Yorke, was amongst their ranks. They were crowned league champions in 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2000. They won the European Cup in 1999 and the FA Cup four times in the 90s, as well as 2004 and they also won various other League Cups, Charity Shields and the Cup Winners' Cup in 1991.

Meanwhile, at the same time in basketball, the Chicago Bulls were almost unbeatable in the NBA. Inspired by the greatest player of his generation Michael Jordan, the Bulls emerged as NBA champions six times in that decade.

Staying in the US, baseball was dominated by the New York Yankees from 1947 to 1962 as they won 10 World Series titles, five of them consecutively from 1949 to 1953. Again they were inspired by the on-field genius of Joe di Maggio, with many of the hitting records he set during that period standing to this day.

Kenyan runners have dominated at international level in cross country, road running, middle and long distance athletics. They have claimed 13 out of the 18 medals up for grabs in Olympic 3000m steeple chase and have won gold at the last six summer Olympics in that event.

Results are similar at World Championship level where Kenyan-athletes have scooped every gold in the 3000m steeple chase from 1991 until the last championships in 2005. Their success has been built on an incredible work ethic and unstinting dedication.

In netball, a popular sport in the West Indies, the mighty Australian team has won eight world titles out of the 11 that have been contested since the first one back in 1963. They were World Champions uninterrupted from 1971 until 1987 when dethroned by New Zealand and then from 1991 until 2003 when their title was once again taken away by the Silver Ferns. In a sport that is largely amateur it was their professional approach that helped them stand out.

In hockey, consider the Indian national men's team, which was Olympic champion from 1928 until 1956.

There have been other hugely dominant teams over the years in other sports - Brazil in beach volleyball and the Soviet Union men's team in ice hockey who took medals at every winter Olympics between 1956 and 1988 including eight golds.

The Soviet women's gymnastics team dominated the Olympic team event winning gold eight times in a row from 1952 to 1980. They lost out in 1984 due to the boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics but then came back to win the title again in 1988 and 1992.

China has been the dominant force in table tennis, the USA men's 4x100m swim team did not lose a race in the Olympics between 1964 and 2000; and New Zealand has won nine of the last 12 World Sheep Shearing Championships since 1977!

When assessing and comparing sporting excellence, it is necessary to put achievements into perspective.

West Indies cricket faced and overcame huge obstacles.

Apart from cricket and this venerable university, these two words together - West Indies - are rarely used. When the West Indies cricket team dominated the world it did not receive funding from the 'West Indies' government; it did not have access to the 'West Indies' high performance centre.

Never before or since has a 'nation' - and I use that word in inverted commas - assembled such a dominant team from such diverse backgrounds.

The 12 sovereign nations and other territories that make up the West Indies are fiercely independent, both from the British, who introduced the game to the region, and from each other.

In Australia, the dominant winter sport is Australian Rules Football, a strange and exhilarating code that is played passionately throughout the continent. In a landmark court case in the 70's, a judge described the League as a "confederation of sworn enemies" Does that description ring any bells for those of you who lived through the golden years of West Indies cricket?

The flight time from Kingston, Jamaica to Georgetown, Guyana is about four hours, the length of time it would take to get from London to Libya or Brisbane to Hong Kong

The population of the West Indies is seven million.

These nations had little money to spend on sporting teams. They had other, more pressing priorities for their limited funds.

Modern history usually sees sovereign nations exerting their sovereignty and taking separate paths. We are celebrating this year the sixtieth anniversary of the partition of India that saw three strong cricket countries emerge from one nation. The fact that the 12 nations and other territories have stuck together through thick and thin, through conflict and controversy, parochialism, jealousy and the political intrigue that inflicts itself on sporting bodies is a great success story in itself. The fact that many of them did this when they were undergoing significant political change within their own countries adds to the achievement.

The success story that is West Indies cricket also epitomizes the beauty and passion of sport. On limited budgets, without science, technology, dietary supplements, personal trainers and huge salaries, they had pure athleticism, dedication, intensity, pride, aggression, courage, drama and character and that was more than enough.

It is a success story that embraced adversity. It crossed cultural, racial, political and financial barriers.

In the first draft of this speech, I sought to compare the significant advantages that some of the other great teams - the Bulls, the Yankees, Manchester United, the Soviet ice hockey and gymnastics teams and the USA swimmers had that the West Indies did not have. I have elected to not pursue that point. Comments about private jets and billionaire owners and denigration of the achievements of other great sporting teams has no place in a lecture such as this that seeks to identify and honour excellence.

While I am on the subject of private jets, one obstacle that the West Indies faced that impacts far less on other cricket teams is the difficulty and huge cost of bringing teams together for practice or for domestic competititon. In many of our Test playing countries, many players live in the same region and others fly in by domestic airline or travel by car, bus or train. When I last checked, there was no train line from Trinidad to Jamaica!

What else made the West Indies special? Why have I called it a phenomenon? I suggest that to merit those words "special" and "phenomenon" a team has to do something that literally changes the way its sport is perceived. It has to change the game.

We have seen individuals do it in the modern game. Players like Adam Gilchrist for example and Shane Warne too. These are players who, by dint of their own performances, have changed the way the roles they have played are perceived by everyone in the game. Before Gilchrist teams were happy with a wicketkeeper averaging 25 with the bat. The modern wicketkeeper is an "all-rounder" and is expected to average 35 or better, and score quickly too. Warne, meanwhile, has reinvented leg-spin, an art that appeared doomed 20 years ago. He has not only made it fashionable, but also exciting.

But can a team do it - can a team not only dominate its contemporaries but also change the way a game is perceived and the way it is played? Many of the sides I have mentioned in other sports may have done so over relatively short periods of time but few if any can have done so for 30 years, as the West Indies did.

So how did the West Indies change the game? Quick scoring is considered by some pundits to be the invention of modern batsman of the last decade or so, emerging from a diet of 50 and 20 over cricket. As you will have heard, Herschelle Gibbs scored six sixes today in St Kitts, earning one million dollars for charity from one of our sponsors, Johnnie Walker in the process. But the roots of rapid run-getting are clearly in the flamboyance of the West Indies players. In 1976 they scored 451 runs on the first day of a Test match against England at Headingley.

And how about last innings chases against the clock? In 1984, at Lord's, the West Indies scored 344 in less than three sessions to beat England, and they did so for the loss of just one wicket - and that was a run out.

They not only won series but won them by record margins - they famously blackwashed England 5-0, not once but twice, something not achieved against that team for more than 60 years. They beat every opponent home and away and did so over the course of three decades. Some can claim that level of success over shorter periods but few if any can match that length of dominance.

They reinvented the game through their style of play with the ball as well as the bat, with the four-pronged pace attack that many sides have since tried to copy but which none have emulated. Some might argue that such a one-dimensional attack was to the detriment of the game but few could argue with its effectiveness or the effect it had on opposition both in its thinking and the selection trends it started. Every side wished it had fast bowlers of the quality boasted by the West Indies; none could find them in either that quantity or quality.

And it was not just on the field that the West Indies achieved that trick of re-inventing the game; they did so on the training ground as well. It was the West Indies sides of the 1970s and 1980s that began the trend towards peak fitness that is now embraced by every side in the world. They were the first team to take fitness really seriously. Many of the players were great athletes anyway but they enhanced their natural gifts by getting as fit as possible. The tough-as-teak Australian Denis Waight joined up with them during World Series Cricket and he put together the regimes that kept the players on the park.

West Indies were the side everyone wanted to see. They brought crowds back to cricket in the 1960s and 1970s - just witness the footage that has been on television recently of the 1975 World Cup if you want proof of that - and in so doing inspired the next generation of players and, just as importantly, supporters, not only maintaining the sport but popularizing it.

So, to recap, what made the West Indies the greatest sporting phenomenon of the twentieth century, at least to this observer?

They dominated the game for three decades.

They changed the way the game was played.

They played with great spirit and flair.

They were loved at home and abroad.

Finally and importantly, to put it very bluntly, as you would expect from an Australian, the odds that were stacked against them were so great that they should have failed dismally. Instead, they dominated the game like no team before or since.

Cricket has adopted the unfortunate term "minnows" to describe its emerging countries. A minnow, as we know, is a very small fish. The success story that is West Indies cricket sees 13 minnows combining against the odds to become a lion, the king of the sporting jungle.

And that lion grew teeth and claws remarkably quickly given the disparate nature of its constituent parts. The West Indies as a cricketing entity played its first Test in England in 1928 but played only eight series in the next 20 years, in part due to the World War Two. It won that eighth series, in India, its first success, in 1948/49 and then, in just one generation, went from new kids on the block to THE force in the cricketing world - now that is phenomenal.

With that, ladies and gentlemen, in relation to the major premise of this lecture, I rest my case and hope I have convinced you.

You will recall at the outset that I said I would address two further questions. The first question was why did this phenomenon occur?

Excellence is obvious to most observers but the reasons for it can be more obscure.

I suggest the following reasons. I would not presume to claim this list is exhaustive and I am sure many of you in this room will have thoughts of your own, and after all, you have been much closer to it than I.

The simplistic view is exactly that: simple. The West Indies had bowlers that scared the living daylights out of the opposition and batsmen that set out to smash the opposition's attack and in doing so give their own bowlers time to take 20 wickets to win the match.

You could argue those two rules have applied to most, if not all, of the successful cricket teams in history.

What the West Indies did was to look to dominate and intimidate the opposition through skill, intelligence and ability.

Part of the reason for the side's success, in my view, lies outside the group that took the field. It lies in the efforts of those players that rarely, if ever, got the chance to wear the famous maroon cap. The likes of Wayne Daniel, Sylvester Clarke, Norbert Phillip, Trinidad and Tobago's own Tony Gray, Tony Merrick and Winston Davis would have been first choices for all other Test sides in the eras they played in and would also have featured prominently had they been born at a different time. The fact they only played a handful of internationals between them is testament to the effect they had on those players in possession of places in the starting line-up. Their own hunger to make an impression ensured the likes of Holding, Marshall, Garner, Roberts and Walsh, amongst others, were never in a comfort zone and that drove those players to even greater efforts. Other sports call it "bench-strength". In the case of the West Indies, it was more like a grandstand than a bench.

Talent is nothing without guidance, direction and leadership. Sir Garfield Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Clive Lloyd and Sir Vivian Richards provided the West Indies with a dynasty of great leaders for the three decades with which we are dealing. This quartet had the ability to lead from the front and inspire others through their own performances. But, on top of that, they all managed to unify the diverse groups in their charge into a single, cohesive fighting force. They provided a consistent thread of top quality leadership.

These four captains, followed latterly by Richie Richardson, were able to bring the talent of successive generations of players to the surface but they were helped, perhaps uniquely, by many of their players receiving additional schooling in the shape of the time they spent playing county cricket in England. That hunger I referred to earlier as driving the team, and especially the bowlers in possession of places in the side, was fuelled by the high levels of professionalism the players were able to achieve thanks to being part of the county circuit. As overseas professionals they were expected to lead either the bowling or batting line-ups for their sides, and pressure like that could either drive players on or make them crumple. To their credit most players that made the trip across the Atlantic rose to the challenge and became better players as a result. It is difficult to think of any other sport where a team's members have been polished individually outside their natural environment before coming together in this way, something that makes the successes they enjoyed all the more remarkable.

My second question was what needs to happen to cause this phenomenon to happen again? Can the confederation of Caribbean cricket minnows rule world sport again?

We will all have our own views on the keys to achieve that former glory. I suggest there are four key areas that need to be achieved. They are the following:

* Great governance, management and strong leadership; * Taking advantage of the changed cricket environment; * Co-ordinated development of young boys and girls; * And, most importantly, a commitment to unity from all of the game's stakeholders.

I shall deal with each in turn.

Great governance and management produces great sporting teams.

The governors and managers of sport need to recognise that sport is different from business.

We do not own the sport. We are trustees for the public. Our objective is to leave the game in a better state than when we were elected or appointed.

We do not have shareholders or a share price. We have stakeholders. Our performance is not measured on a stock market. It is more difficult to measure and it is must driven more by the values, traditions and spirit of the game than by the quest for dollars.

Governance and management structures are of vital importance to modern sport. West Indies faces unique problems in this area. How do 12 countries and territories create a structure that will maximize performance? They must create a confederation of partners rather than a confederation of enemies.

In modern sport, the most important partnership may well between President and Chief Executive for they deliver the two key parts of the organisation, governance and management, or to look at it another way, strategy and implementation.

Trinidad's Ken Gordon has led the governance of West Indies cricket carefully and strongly through an important and difficult period. There have been outstanding leaders of the game before him whose work is reflected in the greatness of the teams they governed. Part of the art of leadership is to surround yourself with excellence. The more great people who are around you, the more you will achieve.

West Indies has two distinct advantages here. This World Cup has seen hundreds of West Indians exposed to cricket administration, many for the first time. It is a great part of the legacy of this event. The best of them should be identified and recruited to work for the game.

The second advantage is that there are many former players throughout the region who have strong views about the game and seek to have those views heard. A meaningful and productive role must be found for them.

I am delighted to see that former Jamaican Prime Minister Mr P.J. Patterson has been appointed to head a task force to examine the structure of West Indies cricket.

When sporting structures are being created, there are no rules. The traditional model generally follows democratic principles and each state, county, province or island is represented. It does not have to be that way. New Zealand Cricket has a different model. It has a seven person Board that must include the Chief Executive, one former international cricketer and one female. Board members are nominated by provinces and the nominees are assessed and appointed by an independent Nominations Committee. It works well.

A better model for the West Indies may be to have two small boards. One would consist of people with commercial and business expertise to deal with the business aspects of cricket. The other would consist of former players who would deal with the cricket aspects of the game. There would be overlap but an executive structure could be put in place to resolve these overlapping areas.

Partnership is perhaps the most important aspect of cricket. Where would Greenidge be without Haynes, Marsh without Lillee and Ramadhin without Valentine? As good as they were on their own, when Ambrose and Walsh bowled in tandem, they seemed to be better even than their considerable individual talents should have permitted.

I believe the powerful affection that cricket inspires is the commonality that can bind these diverse and culturally aware places together. And far from attempting to stifle this diversity we should - and I believe do - celebrate it for what it is. We must not go down the path of manufacturing cricket into some kind of clone that is the same all over the world. While playing regulations are a necessity and must be formalized and controlled, vagaries in conditions, styles of play and how the game is celebrated must be allowed to flourish and take their own path.

That's what true partnership is. Just as Ramadhin and Valentine complemented each other with their right and left-arm combination, effective partnerships work on the basis of defining boundaries and working out where the strengths and weaknesses lie.

World cricket in 2007 is stronger than it has ever been.

It is the number one sport for over a fifth of the world's population.

The number of ICC member countries has doubled in the last decade and growth outside the traditional heartlands has increased by over 100 per cent in the last four years.

The sport has embraced an exciting new format - Twenty20 - that will have its first world championship later this year.

Revenue from broadcast and sponsor agreements has grown enormously.

The affinity between cricket and new media and technology is exciting and creates huge opportunities for us.

And the current golden generation of players is setting new benchmarks in excellence with bat and ball.

The game has changed. Some traditionalists are not happy about this just as they were not happy in the 70's when one-day cricket emerged as a power.

This changed environment creates great opportunities and challenges for our members.

West Indies cricket must respond positively and strongly to these challenges.

The game's commercial powerhouse is the Indian sub-continent. West Indies must forge commercial partnerships with these countries.

There is huge potential for West Indies in USA and Canada. West Indies as the major cricket country in the region must lead the game in these countries.

The bulk of cricket's revenues comes from broadcast rights. The next media rights deal for WICB is hugely significant and important.

Player relations is now a constant agenda item for cricket countries. West Indies has had more than its share of problems in this area. These issues must be solved.

The major legacy of Cricket World Cup 2007 is that this region now has a portfolio of five star cricket grounds. WICB must maximize this huge advantage.

Twenty20 cricket has great commercial potential for the region. The WICB's strategic approach to optimizing this potential is of vital importance.

WICB has been awarded the ICC Champions Trophy in 2010. This will see a new format in which the top eight countries will play a total of 15 matches. It is a great opportunity to build on the enthusiasm that has been generated by this World Cup.

My third point relates to talent identification and recruitment.

All sports seek to recruit, train and retain first choice athletes.

In recent years, I believe that a myth has emerged that the relative decline of cricket in this region is a result of first choice athletes who would otherwise have been cricketers being recruited by US colleges on basketball and football scholarships.

I think we should question this myth. Look at other countries. English footballers are paid hundreds of thousands of pounds each week. Rugby is hugely popular in South Africa and New Zealand. In Australia there are four major football codes where players are paid as much as top cricketers. Look at tennis, golf, basketball and swimming in all of these countries. All of these sports are very well administered and they are all seeking first choice athletes for their sports.

The science of sports talent identification is now well developed. England, Australia, South Africa and Pakistan have great national cricket academies that take this talent and mould and develop it using the latest scientific methods. There are several new academies being set up in India and Bangladesh.

West Indies cannot afford to be left behind in this area. There is a great history of natural talent in this region. You are nearly as famous for your sprinters as for your cricketers. Be at the forefront of identifying first choice athletes from your young men and women and set up the necessary structures to turn them into world beaters.

Finally it is essential that there is unity in the game in the region. Parochial self interest, intrigue and jealousy are endemic in sport.

It is vital that these evils play no part in the future of the game. Please identify your new structures, elect and appoint your best people and give them a mandate to govern and manage the sport.

In summary, my recipe for renewed excellence of West Indies cricket is great governance and management, adapting positively to changes in the cricket environment, focusing on recruitment of first choice athletes and ensuring that the sport operates with a unified strategy and speaks with one voice.

I wish Brian Lara and his men good luck as they carry on the mantle and seek to follow in Clive Lloyd's footsteps and lift the trophy when finals day comes around on 28 April.

I continue to hope that this World Cup will be played in the right spirit - competitively but honestly; hard but fair.

The lineage of this special spirit of cricket traces directly back to that historic series in 60-61 and today's icons have a responsibility to uphold the values espoused by Sir Frank Worrell's West Indians four and a half decades ago.

Worrell's side may not have left Australia in 60-61 as series winners but that particular West Indies vintage laid the foundations for both international cricket's greatest dynasty and our sport's special spirit that endures to this day.

The great game of cricket has been blessed with one of world sport's greatest dynasties from the sixties to the nineties. World cricket looks forward to the day when West Indies will again sit at the top of world sport.

Thank you all for your attention and, most importantly, thank you West Indies for your past, and if we rally round the West Indies effectively, we look forward to enjoying your future greatness.