About 15 or so years ago I was driving through Porus in Jamaica when I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t seen it in a while and haven’t seen it since; but there, as I negotiated a corner, was a cleared lot of land to my right, and on it there were about ten boys playing cricket.
I sometimes stay at my parents’ home in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. On the opposite side of the road lived some children who were often joined by other kids in the neighbourhood to play. They always started early in the mornings and engaged in various types of activities – football, marbles, rode bicycles. But I never once saw them play cricket.
Forty years ago this would not have been the case. Cricket was a popular sport played all over the country on almost every available strip of land. Often, it was played with makeshift gear: bats carved out of wood or from coconut branches, crude balls made from stones and rubber, the bounce of which was uncertain, and maybe a piece of zinc for a wicket.
Many of the region’s greatest players developed their game playing this kind of cricket. George Headley played every day with other boys from his community. One story is that he once batted two or three days without getting out.
Michael Holding and boys from his neighbourhood played on a patch of ground in the Red Hills area of St Andrew, Jamaica. They played regularly for many hours at a time, as boys did all over the island.
Many communities, and major companies like banks, sugar estates and other large organizations, had decent cricket teams and would arrange matches with each other. As a boy I recall going on an outing with an outfit called the Devon cricket team – Devon being the name of the community from which they came.
They were good and had a large following. They even had their own team song. I remember two names from the side – Nene and Blue. Nene was a left-armed fast bowler, aging at the time I saw him but still threatening. Blue was a very attractive and forthright right-handed stroke player. I don’t think I exaggerate when I say this: if those better players of the Devon team were playing today they’d have not been far from national selection.
The team they travelled to play was one from the Half Moon hotel in Montego Bay. Devon won easily as I remember. Nene got three or four wickets. Blue didn’t get many, maybe 20 or so, but he gave more than a glimpse of his quality. I remember one square cut that had the gathering talking about West Indies opener Gordon Greenidge. When he got out the disappointment of the traveling throng was palpable.
The community of Cobbla is about four or so miles from Devon and they had a decent team as well. I went many a weekend to watch them play and their games attracted a fair-sized crowd, members of which were quick to bellow advice and criticisms. They had a famous player at one point – Seymour Newman, a world-class 400- and 800-metre runner who represented Jamaica in the 1976 Montreal and 1980 Moscow Olympics.
He was also a fast bowler with a smooth action. He told me once that no less a person than Allan Rae, former West Indies opener and one-time president of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control, told him that he was a yard or so quicker than Michael Holding, alongside whom he represented Jamaica at youth level.
The above is to emphasise the depth to which cricket penetrated the fabric of the community. The game was popular and widespread, attracting intense participation and solid support. That is why West Indies cricket was strong for a long time. And it is the diminution of that participation and support why its strength has waned to such a marked degree.
What we are witnessing in Jamaica and, I’m sure, the rest of the Caribbean is a shift in culture. Yes, there is a lack of proper infrastructure and there might be a lack of high-quality leadership in Caribbean cricket. But those have been long-standing issues that plagued the region even when their cricketers ruled the world.
Over the years, the West Indies have changed captains, coaches, selectors and presidents – all to no avail. That’s because the real issue is not one of personnel. It goes much deeper than that.
Track and field, sprinting in particular, is a passion in Jamaica. Children are coached and encouraged to run and to compete in every school in the country. Every school has a sports day each year when houses compete against each other in almost every track and field event. It is one of the most anticipated days of the school year, attracting large numbers of parents, past students, vendors, and community members.
The best from sports day are chosen to represent their school in regional meets, Eastern, Central and Western Championships. The culmination of all this is the Boys and Girls Athletic Championships, or simply – Champs.
Champs is like a mini-Olympics. It is held at the National Stadium in Kingston over five days and all high schools are welcome to participate. Huge crowds from all over the island turn up. My brother-in-law, Winston, is a Kingston College (KC) old boy. He often travels to Jamaica from the US just for Champs, as do many others.
The competition is fierce, and the best from Champs are often offered scholarships to colleges in the United States. Some join the growing number of elite coaching camps in Jamaica, such as Glen Mills’ Racers Track Club, one-time home of Usain Bolt, the greatest male sprinter ever, and Stephen Francis’ MVP Track Club, where Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, perhaps the greatest female sprinter of all time, once trained.
The point I’m making is that the large pool of participation and support leads to a product that ranks with any in the world. Jamaica is not a country of hefty resources, but if you are talented in track and field, chances are you will be discovered and offered the kind of nurturing and assistance that could make you a standout.
Cricket no longer has that kind of ecosystem. Track and field comes to you wherever you are. On the other hand you have to actively seek cricket out and even then you might not find it. The once-large pool has dwindled, and the game is apparently no longer as attractive an option as any of its competitors vying for the hearts and minds of the Caribbean people. Somewhere in Guyana or Jamaica or Antigua or St. Kitts or St. Lucia or any of the West Indian territories, might well be a Brian Lara, a Deandra Dottin, a Viv Richards, a Malcolm Marshall, a Hayley Matthews, a Courtney Walsh or a Lance Gibbs lurking.
But how will we know if they never get to hold a bat or bowl a ball? There might very well be potential Stafanie Taylors, Michael Holdings and Lawrence Rowes around, but if they are like my kids and nieces and nephews, they’re probably inside playing video games and not outside playing cricket.
Last year, West Indies cricket descended to what some say was its lowest ebb when they were dismissed for 27 – the second-lowest total in Test history – in the second innings of their Test against Australia in Jamaica.
Then in the first Test of the following series against India they were dismissed for 168 and 146. Roston Chase’s men showed improvement in the second Test with second innings hundreds from John Campbell and Shai Hope but they still lost badly by seven wickets after following on.
As humiliating a period as this is, however, it is not at all surprising to those paying close attention. We have all witnessed the deterioration over time. In response, Cricket West Indies summoned some of its great men – Clive Lloyd, Vivian Richards and Brian Lara and others – to meet with its cricket committee to discuss the issues and to provide suggestions.
We hope some good will come of this but this is not the first time the greats have been pressed into service. We hope, also, that the focus on administration and selection is shifted elsewhere. These issues have long been considered and discussed to little avail. Not that there are no improvements to be made in these areas, but these matters are not at the heart of the problems facing West Indies cricket.
What the regional authorities need to address is this: how do they make cricket popular again? How do they get more people playing and watching? How do they rekindle the kind of interest and enthusiasm in the game that saw huge crowds turning out for Test matches and even for regional games?
In early 1986 England toured the Caribbean. Shortly before they arrived, the regional first-class competition, then called The Red Stripe Cup was in progress and a particularly mouth-watering contest was approaching.
It was between Barbados and Jamaica, and it was to feature some of the biggest stars in the cricketing firmament. For Jamaica, there were Michael Holding, Courtney Walsh, Patrick Patterson and Jeffrey Dujon, and among the Barbadians were Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner.
The highly anticipated skirmish was dubbed “the first Test” and drew a huge gathering. Today they’d likely have less than a hundred people witnessing a red-ball game between those two countries.
Some years ago, when cricket was removed from free-to-air television and put onto cable in Jamaica, I feared a blow had been dealt to maintaining and increasing interest in a game that had already shown signs of declining popularity. I don’t know what effect it had, but I doubt it would have been favourable. I saw it furthering the overall decline.
The difficult task CWI has is to halt the decline and get things moving in the opposite direction. Growing and developing the cricket community in the Caribbean is vital for sustainable improvement of the game. I don’t presume to have the answers, but kids must start playing again, both in schools and in their neighbourhoods. The pool of young players needs to be increased.
Consider this: in an article written by Garfield Myers in the Jamaica Observer on October 21 2023, coach for Manchester High in Jamaica, Burtram “Barry” Barnes lamented the decline in schoolboy cricket.
According to Barnes, when he started coaching the school in 2007 there were more than 50 schools playing in the Headley Cup, the rural U19 cricket competition. By 2023, however only 41 schools were involved in cricket over the entire Island – 27 in the Headley Cup and 14 in the urban equivalent, the Grace Shield. This represents a near-fatal depletion of the talent pipeline that used to feed our first-class cricket.
I know cricket equipment is costly, but it will be necessary to make gear available to those being encouraged to play as there will be no return to the days of coconut bats and rubber- wrapped balls.
The administrators must somehow obtain funding for proper equipment to be widely distributed. An informal game of football requires one ball, a bit of space, and a few willing participants. Cricket requires balls, bats, stumps, pads, gloves and more. It is a far more costly undertaking, even at its most basic level.
Cricket can learn something from track and field. The game has to start saturating school and community life again. We need systematic engagement: competitions at every level, coaching in every school, making cricket as unavoidable as running is at school. The game has to seek out young talent instead of it waiting to be found, or those 10 boys playing in Porus 15 years ago will forever be a distant memory.
CWI has its work cut out.
