I venture to suggest that there is no West Indian cause so sacred as the success of the West Indies cricket team.
It is important to be the best in the world – at cricket as at anything else. It is simplistic and shallow-minded to say or think that cricket is just a game and therefore to lead the way in it means little. Economic or military success is not everything in history, just as material well-being and the exercise of power are not all that matter to people. It means a great deal to be a cultural leader in the world – in the arts, in literature, music, theatre, architecture, style and fashion, scholarship – and in cricket which, as much as any game, represents an international cultural experience of abiding significance. To lead in cricket gives us stature in the world. Pride and self-confidence grow as we prevail among the best anywhere. It is an important part of nationhood.
In the writing of WB Yeats there is a wonderfully eloquent phrase; he speaks of “a community bound together by imaginative possessions.” Yeats used this phrase in the context of discussing the importance of a National Theatre for his beloved Ireland.
When I think of cricket and the hope of West Indian nationhood the phrase strikes with me a chord that sings. So little binds us together, but cricket does. Economically, we are much divided and increasingly seem tempted to go our separate ways.
Politically, we remain deeply suspicious of each other and therefore cannot summon the will to come together in the many ways we must know are necessary for practical nationhood. But cricket! There we are different and better and more confident and more together! Truly it is supremely the one imaginative possession which binds our community together.
Our recent Test series win against England, which meant that we retrieved the Wisden Trophy which had gone missing in a foreign land for a long and sad decade, was deeply important to our national psyche. Things are not going well for us in the region.
The world financial catastrophe is catching up with us. The debris of world-wide greed, mismanagement and criminal fraud is washing up on our shores. Economies are under siege. Morale is sinking lower. The project of closer West Indian unity is faltering badly. This West Indian victory, therefore, could not have come at a better time for lifting our spirits and for bolstering our loyalty to something larger and more important than our absorption in self or commitment to differently located countries.
This victory over the old original foe was infinitely more important than just another win-tick in the result records of the game. No ordinary sport this – a nation’s pride and glory was at stake.
So hail the team that did this great deed for us. Hail cool, charismatic Chris Gayle and all his men. Hail Shiv Chanderpaul who for years has been the best batsman in the world and our last resort against ignominy and disaster, and in this series again played three long and vital innings which went far in saving the games we saved. Hail Ronny Sarwan, who came wonderfully good at last, player of the series, back to his smooth-stroking and brilliant best.
Hail Jerome Taylor who won that first Test with a burst of passion and fast bowling reminding us of our great and glorious fast men of yesteryear, bringing us to our feet shouting! Hail Brendan Nash, his eyes widening with utmost concentration every shot he played, who stuck there so often when it mattered. Hail Denesh Ramdin who broadened his shoulders with the burden of the vice-captaincy and at last brought his batting to the level all teams need in a wicket-keeper.
Hail to them all – heroes we need, heroes who make us feel better in a bad time, heroes who hold together our dream of West Indian brotherhood.
But, at the last, I want to single out for fervent, heartfelt praise and thanks the man whose name was indeed synonymous with his role in the series. Fidel Edwards, faithful to our West Indian cause at the last gasp twice – and he had done it too in a previous series, defiant, brave, unbeaten to the end.
Now he bowled fiercely and unluckily – but it was not so much that, it was his role as Thermopylean tail-ender that mattered.
One could hardly bear to watch, my hands grew cold as ice as they always do when West Indies battle at the brink, as twice ball after nerve-frenzied ball, with a vociferous crowd of Englishmen vulturing near his bat, he defended and pushed forward and back, stern and stalwart at the crease, and kept out ball after agonizing ball as time slowed and slowed to torture us, until at last he stunned the leaping ball one last time and we had drawn and won triumphantly. Fidel Edwards – your name and deeds go way beyond statistics in the book.
