In my most recent
piece on this hateful game,[i]surrounding
cricket, I addressed a speech made by the Principal of the University of the
West Indies, Cave Hill, and West Indies Cricket Board, Director, Sir Hilary
Beckles. In that speech he compared Former Captain Chris Gayle to convicted
Jamaican gangster Chris ‘Dudus’ Coke. He made a number of unsupported
conclusions and maligned a number of current players. I hoped my response then
would have put the issue to rest for us both. This was a serious
miscalculation, if not an overgrown ego, on my part. Nevertheless, Beckles did
rest for a while. But he re-entered with his most damning conclusion ever. He
proclaimed in an article entitled, Cricket,
Cash and Country[ii]
that Darren Sammy “..is the Worrell-like figure, leading a youthful West
Indies team through the political debris that blinds us all.” This is as bad as
the Dudus comparison. In a racist society people of African descent have had to
perform over and above the call of duty to maintain position. Sammy seems under
no such requirement. In fact, the required standard for him seems to have
dropped even below that reserved for Whites. Sammy is no Worrell.
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| Frank Worrell |
In
the article Beckles lamented the lure of cash and international tournaments to
players and away from the West Indies team. He distinguished the West Indies
players from other test playing nations and acknowledged that the West Indies
is the only team without its best players on the field. I have little sympathy
for this lament since: one, it is partially if not wholly untrue and two,
Beckles’ publicly stated plan was to get rid of the same senior players who
happen to be our best players. It’s not true because players from those other
countries simply retire early and then go play the international tournaments. Malinga,
Gilchrist, Symonds and Sangakarra come to mind. The Sri Lanka cricket board got the message and reconciled with Malinga and Sangakarra . The WICB remains oblivious. Here, Beckles rehashed what he
has always said except for one concession: the best players are not on the team. Unlike others the West Indies
team has not had a single player who retired and went immediately to play in
those money leagues. On the contrary, senior players have voiced the desire to
continue to play for the West Indies and even when they were advised they were
no longer wanted. But as usual the historians among us ignore history as a
teacher. Only the West Indies schedules international games throughout and in conflict with the most lucrative Indian Professional League (IPL). As usual, this
year they scheduled not one but, two tours that coincide with the IPL.
Additionally, Beckles blames the regional politicians and their
inability to assert leadership and bring the region together. Whatever our
personal views on Caribbean unity, we must understand that its earliest
construction, West Indian Federation, was a Colonial recommendation. It was a
design that ensured continued supply to foreign colonial markets with their
needs. The fact that many progressive thinkers embraced it does not change the
fact of its genesis. The fact it didn’t work then and doesn’t work now has more
to do with a colonial and neocolonial construct that necessarily places each
country in competition for limited markets and resources. I do not dismiss
Caribbean integration as a goal but, like cricket, one cannot ignore the market
place. This has been our reality from the beginning to now. We inherited it with all its inequalities and
racism and to fashion a solution without reviewing that history is just more of
the same.
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| George Headley on the Attack |
There was a time when our beloved West Indies Cricket Team
could only be captained by a man of obvious European descent: White. Had Frank
Worrell been a White man he would have been captain long before 1960. The
same is true for George Headley: of obvious African descent who captained the
team for one game in 1948. But he had been on the team since 1930. This is a
special way of ‘blooding’ a captain: A 20 year apprenticeship. World War II
interrupted his apprenticeship. They then tried him for one game and decided he
was not captain material. He was old, then, for cricket. Perhaps, the West Indies Cricket Board of
Control had concluded Africans could not be captain material because it took
another twelve years, 1960, for Frank Worrell to ascend to the captaincy. Just
like the French who ignored the
beginnings of the St. Domingue Revolution, because according to them a slave
was incapable of revolution. They read no history. WICB believed Africans could
not lead a cricket team. But when Worrell finally got his chance, he
transformed West Indies Cricket. He would have gotten there earlier had he not
been an advocate for players’ rights and increased pay. Today we have in Darren
Sammy a Captain who, like many of the White Captains that preceded Headley and
Worrell, could not make the team on merit. Sammy went further; he defied the
players' strike for rights and pay of 2009 and was rewarded with the captaincy:
some Worrell he is.
The run of White captains is a
clear example of how racism works: White supremacy. Racism is where, in a
multiracial society, one racially identified group exercises socio-political
power over the others and maintains that power by selective exclusion of
members of the other groups from positions of power. It goes further. It
targets and attacks the excluded community at its core, its culture, its
leadership, and its children. But that was not all it represented. The White
captains selected by the White West Indies
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| Gerry Alexander [iii] with Gloves and Clyde Walcott in England 1957 |
With the end of the open practice of apartheid we can
legally, if not actually, walk into places without feeling the stare. It is not
unusual, though in small numbers, to find members of the excluded group within
the power structure. But, they would have been completely vetted and
sympathetic. It varies little when the group is defined by tribe, political
party or caste. In politics they call this mix a coalition.
We forget we have our own system of racial inequality. The
vestiges of it result in all kinds of contortions. It isn’t that other teams
don’t experience internal political conflict. No team is free from racism: even
all-White teams. It flows from a system that exploits players for capital gain
and at the same time treats players of color as less. It’s the same outside of
cricket. Things have improved but not enough. All teams experience internally
and externally generated conflict. Andrew Strauss, England’s
captain and leader of its genuine renaissance is under pressure. Commentators
have been calling for his removal because he has not scored a century in over a
year. Ricky Ponting, Australia’s former Captain who presided over his team’s
dominance over all teams, has been under pressure to produce. Australia
responded by replacing him as captain, after losing the England series, but
kept his experience on the team. Captains of other teams fare no better.
However, Sammy remains captain with below average batting and average bowling with no
claim near the exploits of Strauss and Ponting.
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| Jackie Grant |
A look at the
records of White West Indies captains reveals much. Of the White captains that
played more than 10 test matches as captain, Jackie Grant lost 60 percent of
the games he captained. Of his 12 games he won 3. John Goddard fared no better.
His win percentage is 36 percent even though his tenure included that legendary
3-1 triumph over England in 1950. The difference is he drew more games. Jeffrey
Stollmeyer won 3 of 13 for an unstellar 23 percent. Then followed perhaps the best White Captain Jerry Alexander with a win percentage of 39. But
more important, he only lost 4 of his 18 matches as captain.
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| Rolph Grant |
Their
batting statistics show no stellar contributions to the team. I restricted my research to batting since they were all picked as batters: including batting all-rounders.
Goddard played 39 innings without a single test century and closed with an
average of 30.67. Stollmeyer started as an opening batsman and played 56 test
innings with a half-decent average of 42.2 which included a meager 4 centuries.
Grant, who incidentally also played for Rhodesia, completed his tour of 22 test
matches with the unflattering average of 25.8 and without a single century.
Grant, as the others, was often described as a sound tactician. Alexander in his 38 innings managed an average
of 30 with a solitary century. He was the last White captain, or maybe not. Given
their records one would have to find a reason to justify their inclusion. Both Grant
and Alexander attended and played for Cambridge and that would have been
sufficient to be selected captain of the West Indies.
But none were exempt from public critique about their unmerited place on the team. However, the public did not run the WICB and do not
now. Alexander in particular suffered to justify his place in
the team. According to Martin Williamson of Cricinfo
it was felt that there were better wicket keepers in the Caribbean than
Alexander. Nothing he did on the 1957
tour of England changed that perception. Under similar pressure, Goddard stood down, dropped
himself, in a final test against Australia because he felt his form was a
handicap to the team. The series was already lost by then. Had the selectors
listened to the public a lot of embarrassment would have been avoided.
Then there was
Worrell
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| Worrell follows Stollmeyer out at Bourda 1954 |
Worrell ended his
tenure as captain with a win percentage of 60. He lost only 3 of his 15 matches
as captain. He played 87 innings with 9 centuries and a batting average of
49.5. Alexander and even Stollmeyer had enjoyed a steadily improving team
because of the services of players like Weekes, Worrell and Walcott. Africans
could now be batsmen and not just bowlers like the early days. Throughout his
time Worrell argued for the rights of players and withdrew from the team in
protest against treatment of the players and pay. Sobers who followed Worrell
into the captaincy, drew more matches than he won but lost only 10 of his 39
tests as captain with an all time batting average of 57.8 after 160 innings
with 26 centuries. Kanhai lost only 3 of the 13 tests he captained. He retired
with an all-time batting average of 47.8 after 137 innings and 15 centuries.
Lloyd regarded as the most successful captain won roughly half of his games. Of
his 74 games as captain he lost only 12. Viv Richards likewise lost only 8 of
his 50 games.
I stop at Richards’
tenure for brevity and not to avoid the telling decline in victories that continued on to the present. It is not my goal here to explain the decline. I attempted that elsewhere. My goal is to look at the re-emergence of class and
race as criteria for selection and the effect it is having on the team’s
fortunes. If you believe racism in this context requires a White WICB, you may
have misunderstood some of what I said so far. It is true that none of the WI
captains that followed between Richardson and Sammy have distinguished
themselves as Captains. But they have distinguished themselves as players. No
one would question their positions in the teams they led. We were thrilled by
Lara and drawn to Hooper, if only briefly. Walsh thought us about heart. Gayle
in my view has surpassed all of our batting greats in every respect. He is
simply the best we have ever seen. Statistics is not everything. A bowler’s
fear, that is something. What we have today is a captain who has won only 2 of
his 15 games and after 42 innings, sports a batting average of 19 without a
single century. By unfair contrast, George Headley who played fewer tests, only
40, and could not be captain, amassed an average of 61 with 10 centuries.
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| Chris Gayle |
What Beckles needs to assess and answer is the continued
absence of the players who took part in the strike of 2009, from the team. It
is this and similar behavior past and present that is ruining Caribbean cricket
and players are unwilling to vest their futures in an organization incapable of
respecting the rights of its employees. All are gone, with the exception of
Chanderpaul whose local board and government in Guyana threatened civil action
if he was dropped. While Sammy the vice-captain of the replacement team remains,
as captain, and so too does Kraigg Braithwaite and we have seen both their
limitations. Imagine the catastrophe that would have been the result of the
recent tours without Chanderpaul. I’m hopeful that Chanderpaul’s continued
presence is as a result of some thinking members of the board. Seriously, would Professor Beckles or any
sportsperson want to play on that team whose captain crossed the picket line? Beckles’
answer is clear. That is what we have lost. Explain to us why the WICB refused
to negotiate and instead fielded a replacement team with the aged Floyd Reifer
as captain knowing it was a one-off job and that Sammy would inherit the
throne. The other players in that replacement team have themselves been
discarded because the WICB’s commitment is not to the player but to its White
and foreign benefactors. It is to Digicel. We know the answer to the questions:
Digicel and add Sagicor.
Beckles ought to explain his role on the Board of Sagicor
and so many of its subsidiaries. Sagicor which used to be the Barbados Mutual Life
Assurance Society (BMLAS) built on slavery and its aftermath of insecurity. Did
not BMLAS provide jobs for ex-White captains of the WI cricket like the
Atkinson brothers at a time when Africans could not work there? Explain to us
about McNamara and his role in the St. Lucian law firm of the same name and as
head of the Sagicor Board. Tell us why we have a St. Lucian President of the
WICB, a St. Lucian CEO and a St. Lucian captain. Is it because they gave the
money to build the Sagicor High Performance Center?
Instead, Beckles has heaped unsustainable pressure on a
player and captain ill equipped to withstand it. Beckles wrote that,
“Worrell was called to lead during and after the crisis we call the federation fiasco. He picked up the pieces and restored West Indian order at the centre of the calamity. Sammy is a powerful mind; a gladiator in the arena, staring down the lions with dignity in the face of death.This is bizarre. Now Sammy is placed squarely in the face of growing regional discontent and the only way to express it is to attack Sammy and the Board by extension. I have no desire to attack Sammy, or St. Lucians. My desire is to point out the contradictions. He is a mere pawn in the Board’s game to wrest cricket back from unionization.
Can we imagine our world after Sammy? After Sammy, then what? Then who?”
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Jeffrey Stollmeyer (l)[iv] and Andy
Ganteaume (r) @ Sabina Park, Jamaica 1946
|
The
real tragedy is that this historically racist and classist approach to team
selection has left a real question over West Indies cricket even today. In
fact, it leaves a shadow over all cricket because none of the teams were or are
exempt from these attitudes. What would India’s cricket be without its
exclusion of Dalits and its propensity for light skinned Indians. Add Pakistan,
South Africa, Australia and England to the mix. How many Sehwags and Inzamams
we have missed. How many Gayles and Headleys were lost. This foolishness must
end. One is left to speculate on the real value of performances in a sport that
actively practiced racism. But specifically, how different would the West Indies
have fared without this pall of inequality. It must not be allowed to return
albeit in some disguise as Worrell.
The White Captain phenomenon was so egregious an exercise
that several sets of brothers have played for the West Indies and they were all
White: The Stollmeyers, Grants, and Atkinsons[v].
In each case, at least one of the brothers played as Captain. This is another
kind of ‘blooding’, a captain. One could play if your brother is, or had been,
captain. In the case of the Grant brothers, Rolph and Jackie both captained the
West Indies. Of course, other spaces on the team were also opened to White men
not just the captaincy. They had first choice and only exceptional men of color
would get into the team. Sammy seems to have that same quality as our White
Captains.
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| Darren Sammy |
Recently, Gayle announced his availability for selection
after a one year exile. Sammy and Coach Gibson welcomed him back but warned
about the new ‘hard working culture’, and ‘hardworking environment’[vi]
respectively. We cannot make this stuff up. The imagery of the lazy African is
never far. Gayle has plundered runs all over the world without knowing about
hard work. We are made to believe hard work is an alien ‘culture’. Gayle must fit into this new culture. I completed this article days before Gayle’s announcement. I couldn’t
resist adding this paragraph, because it shows clearly the race and class
affinities. Evidently there is some kind of new culture where the best batsman in the world
is unaware. As it is, his return has saved both their jobs, if only temporarily. Things
never change.
Recently, Sammy tweeted comments that ended with “We all in”.
It sounded very alien. Perhaps, if said by someone other than Sammy it would
have a more familiar ring. I later
learned that it was the slogan of our cricket’s sponsor Digicel. It wasn’t even original but a take-off from
Adidas’ ‘We all run’. But more importantly even in his leisure activities he is
beholding to the powers that run the show. It’s the only way to retain his
place on the team unless he is White. Given his record, he would have to be the
Whitest captain yet
[ii] Sir
Professor Hilary Beckles, Cricket, Cash
and Country ,The Barbados Advocate, April 12, 2012
[iii] Standing
behind wicket keeper Alexander is Walcott considered a very good keeper in his
time. The pressure got so much for Alexander than on a later tour of Australia, he
handed to gloves to Rohan Kanhai another fine wicket keeper on the team.
[iv]
Ganteaume scored a patient century on debut, 112, but never played another game
for the West Indies. A consummate athlete Ganteaume represented Trinidad and
Tobago in cricket and soccer. He has a higher average that the great Don
Bradman. Questioned about the non-selection, Stollmeyer said that Ganteaume’s
century was too slow and did not reflect the kind of shots expected of West
Indian players. Martin Williamson wrote of Ganteaume, “He was certainly not
someone who was going to bow and scrape to the white players who still
dominated the region's cricket.”
For a great article see http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/230869.html
[v]
Darren and Dwayne Bravo are brothers and currently available, if not playing,
for the West Indies.
[vi] Nagraj
Gollapudi, Gibson and Sammy Welcome Gayle
Back, Cricinfo.com
Images (contact rootsandculture for information)
Andy Ganteaume and Jeffrey Stollmeyer is courtesy of Medianet and Andy Ganteaume.
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