A Whole New Ball Game (15 November 1998)

15 November 1998

A Whole New Ball Game

by Hilary Beckles

THE 1996 West Indies journey to the subcontinent for the World Cup was sponsored by the UB Group of Companies, an Indian multinational whose brand name beer - Kingfisher - decorated the garments of West Indian players.

The players, happy for the additional income, did not feel any contradictory sentiment with this global identification largely because it is in line with their own thinking and self-perception.

It would be unreasonable to expect any other reaction from them, given their universal belief that their own nation states have been unable, or unwilling, to offer them a decent remuneration.

The public, however, was thrown into rage when the media carried reports that the West Indies team would have a new name reflecting the sponsors' interest in their new franchise. It would be called the "Kingfisher West Indies". The regional outcry indicated the extent to which the thinking of the WICB, public opinion, and team attitudes were heading in different, and conflicting directions. Product globalisation, it seemed, sought to redefine the identity and ideological trajectory of West Indies cricket.

The popular social division of opinion with respect to Brian Lara is an early indication of the beginning of this process. The evidence of this phenomenon is clear to many. But the point should be made that Brian Lara is enormously misunderstood, ill conceived, and therefore, unimaginatively judged. Since this is so, it is likely that the generation which comes after him will also be incorrectly understood.

A destructive tendency in young nations, particularly emerging from a colonial experience is to personalise social contests that result from underlying structural change and transformation. For example, before, during and after the 1997 tour to Pakistan the media made much of an alleged clash of consciousness between Walsh and Lara with respect to the captaincy of the Test team.

Society participated in the dialogue, and by the time it was obvious that the ashes had settled on the terrain of our scorching defeat, the entire world seemed divided on the decision that faced the WICB.

Walsh is clearly the last standing hero of the age when national pride more than anything else was the motivation for performance on the field. Lara is the first hero of the new paradigm that is characterised by the privatisation, commodification, and global liberalisation of cricket.

There is no turning back. Lara, the first multi-millionaire, globally commodified, cricket entrepreneur of West Indies cricket, has opened the doors for the 21st century generation. Those coming behind him will see his corporate style and connections as the global norm, and will articulate their entrepreneurial interests in ways that transcend the WICB's notions of what is good for West Indies cricket. The board, which lost its public credibility in the 1990s, will not be allowed to define exclusively what is in the interest of West Indies cricket. Indeed, the thinking across the region during the 1990s is that the board itself is not in the game's interest, by virtue of its many decisions being clearly hostile to players and spectators alike.

As currently structured and ideologically formatted, the WICB cannot, therefore, survive the turbulence resulting from the paradigm shift.

Evidence of the callous way in which it treated star players at the end of their careers during the 1980s and 1990s has finally gotten home to the public the fact that it lacks an intellectual and developmental centre of gravity. The general disregard for public opinion with respect to how heroes are viewed has also hardened oppositional sentiments regarding its style and role. The decision it took to remove the word "control" from its title was not intended to shift its thinking towards a more player-centred philosophy.

It continues to think consistent with a vision that players should be managed and controlled and that it should have the final say in all matters. What we have seen in recent years is that players have rejected the "control" function of the Board, and have articulated to replace it with a facilitating and empowering role. The players themselves are at odds with the Board over the features of the new dispensation. They do not believe, in general, that the Board considers itself their agent; rather, they agree to a man that it is their enemy.

New player mentalities and the effects of globalisation have rendered the boards culture obsolete with no viable future.

It is necessary, then, to recognise that structural changes are informing the controversial social ventilations of West Indian cricketers. The correct responses to these developments are not to be found in disciplinary committees nor "tough" managerial policies. The predicament, of course, is that West Indians are not yet ready to accept a detachment of cricket from national agendas, largely because they have invested in it too much of themselves during the transformation from the first to the second paradigm. They are not emotionally prepared for this unhinging of cricket from psychic well being, and continue to locate the game at the centre of the discourse on social and political identity.

(Concludes tomorrow ...)

Hilary Beckles is director of the Centre for Cricket Research, Professor of History, and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Office of the Board for Undergraduate Studies, at the University of the West Indies.

Source :: The Barbados Nation (https://www.nationnews.com/)