Is an appreciation of history required?
After witnessing a presentation on cricket at the Independence Day awards at the University of the West Indies, Fazeer Mohammed says in the Trinidad Express , more than taking trips down memory lane, we must find a way to teach children at such
Nikita Bastian
25-Feb-2013
After witnessing a presentation on cricket at the Independence Day awards at the University of the West Indies, Fazeer Mohammed says in the Trinidad Express, more than taking trips down memory lane, we must find a way to teach children at such events.
... the presentation - from Kirk Perreira's evocative video compilation entitled "The Magic of Melbourne" to feature speaker Mike Coward's articulate and powerful testimony to the contribution of the late Sir Frank and his role as captain of the West Indies in the magical 1960/61 series in Australia - left many misty-eyed and wishing we could somehow be transported back to a time when, to almost all of us in attendance anyway, the game, and indeed life itself, seemed so much more enjoyable.
[But] One of the first things we yearners for an increasingly distant past must acknowledge is that there is more than a touch of arrogance to the assumption that we lived in a time of dignity and civility...and that it's been all downhill since. Droning on constantly about "in my day" as if all was sweet and light in the 1950s, 60s or 70s neither informs nor educates but provokes young people disinclined towards being constantly admonished to just switch off and wait for the old so-and-sos to finish their pointless diatribe.
Nikita Bastian is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo