Then Prime Minister Michael Manley greets Jamaica and West Indies batting star Lawrence Rowe in this 1974 photo. - File

Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

HAD HE lived, Michael Manley most certainly would have been at today's opening Cricket World Cup match between the West Indies and Pakistan at Sabina Park.

Manley - last Tuesday was the 10th anniversary of his death - was one of the last Caribbean intellectuals who constantly linked the region's politics with cricket. His most noted effort was the 1988 book, A History of West Indian Cricket.

The former Jamaica Prime Minister never played the game, but followed Jamaica's progress in territorial matches as well as the West Indies on the Test scene.

Indeed, Manley was at the historic Lord's match in 1950 when the West Indies defeated England for the first time at that famous ground.

At the time, he was a student at the London School of Economics. Errol Barrow and Forbes Burnham, who would go on to lead Barbados and Guyana, respectively, were also studying in Britain and were reportedly part of the West Indian celebrations.

Jervis Anderson, the Jamaica-born American author, compared A History of West Indian Cricket to Trinidadian C.L.R. James' seminal Beyond a Boundary, in his review for The New York Times.

A labour of love

"It was a labour of love and necessity, as was the only other book to which it is compared: James' Beyond a Boundary. Most earlier books on cricket (written chiefly by English and Australian critics and memoirists) celebrated the origins and development of the game, its techniques and aesthetics, the performance and accomplishments of its great batsmen and bowlers. Those by Manley and James shared such celebrations, but also went well beyond. They subjected the game to a cultural scrutiny of a novel seriousness: A searching examination of its contributions to social and political conduct, its relevance to the experience and aspirations of British colonial societies in the Caribbean."

It will never be known what a purist like James would have thought of the changes one-day cricket has brought to the game he loved so much. Never one to oppose change, Manley would have, more than likely, welcomed them.