Apocalypso Now

The West Indies have been in decline for 20 years now, belying hopes countless times. But is this decline terminal, asks Rohit Mahajan in Outlook magazine.

Rahul Bhattacharya, the cricket writer who’s produced his first work of fiction after travelling in the region, isn’t hopeful. He suggests that cricket is not the choice of the times in the Caribbean. Cricket served its purpose in the 1960s through to the 1980s, when the sport acquired a larger, nationalistic meaning and purpose. “Cricket had a sort of purpose then in the pan-Caribbean nationalist project,” he says. “In the 1960s and ’70s, the colonies gained independence one by one. Black nationalism was gathering momentum worldwide. Their team was able to perform at a high level of excellence, and beat the white man.”