Casual West Indies cricket fans channel surfing the wide ranging multitude of options now available on their television sets last Saturday afternoon probably assumed that they had stumbled on a replay of a past Test match from England. Initially confused, they soon grasped that the broadcast was live. Once again, Barmy’s Army, the legion of travelling English cricket fans, was in attendance, outnumbering the dwindling handful of West Indies cricket fans, at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua, as the hosts battled gallantly in the last session to stave off yet another possible defeat.
Oh, that almost extinct species, the West Indies Test cricket fan. The riddle continues to linger and drift in the trade winds blowing across the Caribbean; where have they gone? This apparent complexity, as baffling to comprehend as a well-flighted delivery from the late Sonny Ramadhin (recently past), that appeared to float simply, its mystery invisible to the naked eye. Over the years, many solutions have been tried by Cricket West Indies (CWI), to no avail.
An initial glance at the enigma this time around would point strongly in the direction of the Covid-19 pandemic. As a condition of entry to the Test, spectators were required to be fully vaccinated, and with only 60 per cent of the Antiguan population inoculated, one can easily make the correlation with the low number of locals in attendance. Similar reasons will most likely be responsible for this scenario of outnumbered local supporters being repeated at the Second Test match commencing today in Barbados.
In addition, there was the conundrum of location. In 1981, Antigua became the fifth territory in the Caribbean to host a Test match, doing so at the Antigua Recreation Ground (the ARG, as it is popularly referred to), in St John’s, the island’s capital. In 2007, the Sir Viv Richards Stadium was unveiled in North Sound for the ICC World Cup and hosted its first Test the following year against the visiting Australians, breaking the string of 21 Tests at the ARG. In 2009, the Third Test match versus England was played at the ARG, three days after the Second Test at North Sound was abandoned in the second over due to the poor state of the outfield. Since then all nine Test matches held on Antiguan soil have been played at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, a venue which is out of town and not as readily accessible as the ARG to the local populace.
Barring the additional cost of transportation to get to North Sound, the price of admission for the locals was $10 for adults and $5 for children per day, somewhat affordable in today’s world. However, CWI commissioned research has revealed a socio-economic problem, whereby the locals working in the tourism industry cannot afford to forego the opportunity presented during Test matches to earn much needed income. Thus, the chances of the population in the smaller territories turning out in full force to support their team over a five-day match are limited by the economic realities of it being dovetailed to their prime source of income.
A brief review of the itineraries of the last 12 Test series (1968 to current) involving England and the West Indies reveals an interesting trend in the shift away from the traditional hosting territories of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana, with the emergence of the tourism driven cricket tours in the 1980s. The last time the English appeared in a Test match at either Queen’s Park Oval or Sabina Park was in 2009. Here? It was in the last century,at Bourda in 1998.
Previously, the standard format for the English tours was five Test matches, with Trinidad hosting twice, prior to 1981. With the commissioning of Test venues in St. Vincent (1997), Grenada (2002), St. Lucia (2003), St. Kitts (2006) and Dominica (2011), tourism destinations in their own right, only Barbados of the original four venues has hosted a Test match during every English tour. The full itinerary for the 2019 English tour could have easily been mistaken for the scheduled ports of call on a southern Caribbean cruise liner: Barbados, Antigua, St Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, St Lucia, St Kitts. The obvious question is, why haven’t the West Indies fans based in the diaspora jumped on the opportunities provided by these tourism oriented schedules?
Of course, there is also the oft repeated answer of the effect the tremendously popular T20 revolution has had on the modern day West Indies cricket fan who has been weaned on a heavy diet of the shortest format. Do the claims that the brevity of the game, and the accompanying entertainment are that much more attractive than a 30-hour battle of the best players of the game, really hold water? The atmosphere generated over a five-day Test match could never be compared to that of a manufactured slug fest that’s over in a jiffy. The constant swings in momentum, the continuous need to change tactics, and adapt to varying conditions can make for a fascinating contest for the minds and wills of the two teams, that only Test cricket can produce.
West Indies Test cricket fans might not in fact be approaching extinction as is generally assumed. Rather, they might be continuing to wait patiently in front of their television sets and beside their radios, for the long hoped for resurgence. No doubt their hearts were fluttering last Saturday afternoon, as the home side slumped from 59 without loss to 67 for the loss of four wickets in a matter of 9.3 overs. As the fifth wicket pair of Nkrumah Bonner and Jason Holder dug in their heels, for an unbroken stand of 80 over 34.4 overs to salvage the draw, older fans cast their mind back to the First Test of the 1977 Pakistan series where the last two West Indies wickets held on for one and a half hours to deny the visitors, as a packed Kensington Oval cheered the defiant last wicket pair of Andy Roberts and debutant Colin Croft on with every delivery of the last 8.3 overs, with in-unison chants of “No, No.”
West Indies Test cricket fans will only return to matches when the team displays the kind of resilience it showed last weekend and starts winning on a regular basis. Excuses and reasons for not showing up will be quickly forgotten or discarded as soon as the team makes up its collective mind to believe in itself and become a winner. In the words of the late maverick owner of the NFL Oakland Raiders Al Davis, “Just win Baby.” Just win. Everyone loves a winner.
