Cricket, cash and country
The West Indies is the only nation in Test cricket that currently finds itself unable to place its best team on the field of play
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
The West Indies is the only nation in Test cricket that currently finds itself unable to place its best team on the field of play. In the Barbados Advocate, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles asks why the West Indians in particular pick cash over country while it's less than acceptable in other countries like Australia.
We love cricket and cricketers, and wish the West Indian legacy of excellence restored and respected. In 1995 the intellectually brilliant Michael Manley, then too ill to write another classic work, summoned me to Jamaica to discuss the future of West Indies cricket. He saw the tsunami coming! He insisted that I write about the trends discussed. I had no choice. He was insistent. And I did. Out came a book in 1998: “The Development of West Indies Cricket: The Age of Globalisation”. At the time there was no 20-20; no IPL; no Big Bash; no rejection of country for cash! But we saw it coming! We ran with words into the street to warn the nation. No one listened! It was a classic Noah moment. Then the rain came.
Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo