A Whole New Ball Game - Conclusion (16 November 1998)

16 November 1998

A Whole New Ball Game - Conclusion

by Hilary Beckles

The solution to this predicament lies in The Management of an educational discourse that immerses the player in the knowledge revolution of postmodernity.

Radically transforming the knowledge base of players should empower them with an understanding of the nature of their reality, and demonstrate how the best values of the second paradigm can be used as a positive force for the fulfilment of the third.

If players do not wish to be considered role models for youth, then they should be encouraged simply to be good citizens for themselves in terms of fulfiling their potential as rounded individuals with civic and social responsibilities.

The ideological retraining (or weaning!) of the community is as important as the empowerment of the cricketer. Ultimately, they need each other and their interests are not incompatible.

Educational institutions are important in all of this. The cricket star, like everyone else, should have an intelligent understanding of the crisis of the nation-state and the marginalisation of small communities within the global economy. The contexts within which the market economy of cricket are transformed - the advent of global television and the commodification of performance - should also be understood by cricketers as a prerequisite of effective management of their own careers and civic relations to society.

The University of the West Indies (UWI), and other educational institutions need to come to the centre of this knowledge-based re-engineering. All West Indian first-class cricketers should be enrolled in tertiary West Indian institutions, especially now that distance education is high on the agenda.

They should be exposed to courses (by distance teaching linkages if necessary) that deal with issues from nutrition to public relations, marketing to sociology, literature to management.

During the second paradigm, when we ruled, our players were described by opponents as "world beaters" rather than "world leaders". This criticism should be answered during the third paradigm.

Cricket represented during the second paradigm our greatest single cultural investment. To expect, therefore, the cricketer in the third paradigm to perform socially at a level of conduct respectful of the magnitude of the historical investment, requires considerable preparation, training, and an honest knowledge-based discourse that is rooted in a rational understanding of social reality and historical circumstances.

It is possible to approach this changing cricket culture in a way that extracts the relevant essence of the second paradigm for duty within the third. But it requires social honesty and managerial realism.

The Caribbean world has changed radically since the 1960s, and postcolonial generations have very different mentalities from those that went before.

Resort to ancient, anti-intellectual methods of imposing order and discipline can only aggravate matters and deepen the discord between third paradigm players and their second paradigm administrators. Clearly, West Indians have to decide on the viability of their nation states after their 30 years of existence.

This is a major issue for us all, but we cannot assume that while we ponder the issue cricketers will behave as if there is no problem with nationalist representation, and that the political idealism of old remains intact. Cricket, for us, continues to be a mirror within which we view our internal paradoxes and express our social anxieties.

(Concluded ...)

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/)