Melville Cooke
I HAVE Long ceased to have an avid interest in and lose sleep over the West Indies cricket team. Of course, I still hope that they do well, but it is no longer 'us' because somewhere among the salary disputes, the petulance and Brian Lara's golf games, the bond that made me feel as if a part of me was out there on the pitch was broken.
It was not even so much shortcomings on and off the field of play that removed me from the shrine of six stumps, four bails and a rolled, hard surface in between as the total lack of pride from the players. They would walk out, play with as much passion and commitment as a nubile young woman who is disgusted with her rich, geriatric lover performing on that other, smaller, sweeter pitch, then walk back in as if they were the cat's pyjamas.
LIVE AND LIVING COLOUR
There are very few West Indian cricketers who would automatically arrest my attention if I saw them walking down the street today. I simply would not recognise them. Which is odd, because in this visual age of cricket the players are in live and living colour before us, yet the players I would have instantly recognised from the days of my youth played when the game came to us more in sound than sight.
I was reminded of the sound of cricket two days ago when I stopped at an intersection for a woman to cross the road. She was carrying a radio; not a tiny transistor or a receiver connected to headphones for that self-contained experience, but a 'ready-for-the-hurricane-season' honest to goodness radio. And she was listening to cricket.
For the two or three seconds she took to walk in front of the car I was transported back to years of the sound of cricket which came to us from near and far away places. I saw Clive Lloyd striding to the wicket, huge bat in hand. I saw little Gus Logie pointing to the pavilion filled with wildly cheering teammates as he hit his first six. I saw Michael Holding taking his mark for his feared long run-up, moving off and accelerating into the strides that earned him the nickname the 'Rolls Royce of cricket'. I saw Joel Garner, terrible and large, feet high off the ground, arm at its zenith with a round red rocket about to be unleashed and I saw Desmond Haynes not slowing down because he knew his partner in the legendary opening pair wanted no concessions.
A GOOD KNOCK
And I heard the thock of ball on bat, the roars of the crowds from Australia to India, the applause for a good innings by a West Indies batsman who makes a good knock on enemy turf. Then there was the commentary, which covered not only the flash of bat and a desperate dive to safe ground, but those which alighted on the grounds and birds which alighted in the stands (if you get my drift). I can never forget one piece of commentary from a match in England, where the man calling the game said "a little lad has got on the field. A Bobby is after him. He zigs, he zags, the crowd roars".
My entry into the visual age of cricket came when Richie Richardson was captain and the binary man Keith Artherton (remember him? with scores of 1, 0, 11, 0, 0 and such the like but he kept making the team) gave me my first shudder of disgust. All decked out, chewing gum and hat angled just so, yet he could not play a damn.
Despite the presence of Ambrose and Walsh, and later Jacobs and Chanderpaul, as a few of those who played with passion and pride, I saw too many descendants of Artherton and gradually tuned out of the nauseating sight of prima donnas in pads pretending to be cricketers.
Maybe things have changed. Maybe they have recovered some of that pride and the present sight of cricket will be somewhat like its former sound. But it will take a hell of a lot for what I see to measure up to what I once heard.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
