Keith Boyce's cricketing immortality

Late on Saturday night into the wee hours of Sunday morning I sat in my living room in Barbados to watch the broadcast of the Under-19 World Cup final as the action unfolded, a world away, in Bangladesh.

At some point, during the West Indies' pace attack on the Indians, it occurred to me. None of these young men were yet born on October 11, 1996.

It is strange how the mind works sometimes, because the only reason that my thoughts wandered back to 1996 was the frequent images of Corey Collymore - the West Indies bowling coach - being flashed across my screen as he sat along with the other members of the West Indies management team and coaching staff.

Corey is a man of whom I am truly proud, and with whom I had the pleasure of sharing many of my boyhood cricketing days.

What we also shared was the tutelage of the great Keith Boyce when we played for the Combined Schools North cricket team in Barbados' First Division cricket competition, during the mid-nineties up until Coach's death on October 11, 1996.

And there you have it, the causal link of that fateful day, with present proceedings.

To say it was a team may be misleading, as the word family more appropriately describes it, with "Coach" not only passing on cricketing knowledge, but showing enough interest in our other areas of development to be considered a father figure.

Of our group, Corey was the one who went on to make the biggest impact on world cricket. After recovering from serious early career threatening injury, refashioning his style and pressing on he was able to enjoy a national, international and professional career.

The adage "Those who can do; those who can't, teach" is therefore in no way applicable in the case of Collymore nor was it in the case of Keith Boyce who similarly, but much earlier, enjoyed a career for Barbados, for the West Indies and as a professional for Essex County for many seasons in England.

So in the same way that Collymore was not born by the time Boyce's first class and international career had ended, Hetmyer and none of his young men were born by the time of his death.

Yet it all looked so familiar.

I saw a fire in Joseph's eyes that matched his pace.

I noticed Holder, called up to fill a breach toward the latter part of the tournament, feeling at home enough to not only excel but to change the entire team dynamic.

It appeared to me that those boys who had travelled from their separate islands in the Caribbean had found a family in a country far away and were playing for each other.

From my view from so far away it was clear that Coach Collymore was able to impart some of his knowledge and experience into the plans and execution of that bowling department.

What was also clear was that the influence of Coach Boyce lives on in many of us and, like Corey, we all have that responsibility to bring that influence to bear in some way on present and future generations.

Well done Coach.