TONY COZIER: Cricket no longer on top

CRICKET was the sport that created and, for decades, maintained the West Indies’ reputation for athletic excellence.

For so long the passion of its fanatical public, its strength has rapidly withered, for a variety of mostly self-inflicted reasons. It now ranks ninth among ten Test and ODI teams and, for the first time, is excluded from the eight-team Champions Trophy in 2017 in England.

Fortunately, the consequent despair of all West Indians has been lifted by performances in another sport, by the region’s magnificent athletes, mostly Jamaican with rising numbers from its smaller constituents.

As the individual now unreservedly recognised as the all-time king of the sprints, his sport’s showpiece events, Usain Bolt has been the ideal energiser to put a smile back on the faces of cricket’s sad devotees.

Bolt is a towering Jamaican with a spirited Caribbean sense of fun whose long strides cover the track with the power and speed of lightning. Barring a false start disqualification in the 2011 World Championships, he is unbeaten for seven years in either of his favoured events, the 100 and 200 metres at major championships.

Given the circumstances, his dismissals of his latest, most threatening challenger, the twice-banned American Justin Gatlin, in their two confrontations in the IAAF World Championships in Bejing last week were two unforgettable moments. The cheers echoed loud through the cricketing Caribbean.

Bolt is track and field’s Garry Sobers, the genius Barbadian left-hander who was indisputably the most complete cricketer of all time during a career during a career lasting 30 years. Both developed locally from humble circumstances; their impact on their sport and on the psyche of their people cannot be overstated. 

In a West Indian context, there are unique, distinct differences between athletes, both male and female, who compete as individuals under the banners of their separate, independent nations and sing their own anthems, and the exclusively male cricketers who combine as one team under one flag with one anthem.  

Yet Bolt and the host of others who defy the size of their Caribbean homelands to literally bestride the world have provided a timely a boost to the collective spirits of all West Indians, not least cricket’s unhappy devotees.

It has been increasingly so since the Jamaicans, Arthur Wint and Herb McKenley, strode to gold and silver in the 400 metres at the London Olympics in 1948, the first after the second world war.

In the intervening 67 years, West Indians, Jamaican and others, have repeatedly stood on the podium at major games.

Jamaica’s medal count at the Olympics is 17 gold, 30 silver, 20 bronze, an amazing tally for an island of less than four million inhabitants. Trinidad and Tobago’s is 2-5-11 in weightlifting, swimming, running and javelin throwing.

Now smaller islands seldom previously rated are making their mark.

The young star, Kirani James, won the 400 metres in the world championship in 2011 and the gold medal in the 2012 Olympics in London, Grenada’s first successes.

Kim Collins of tiny St Kitts and Nevis (population 48 000) was 100 metres champion at the 2003 World Championships in France; he’s still among the best at the highest level; aged 39 he is the sport’s Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

In the Beijing championships on Friday, Sarah Proctor from Anguilla (35 square miles, population 15 000) lept to silver in the long jump, representing Britain. Her fellow Anguillian-Brit, 20-year-old Zharnel Hughes, is widely predicted to follow her successes in the 200 metres. 

The names of West Indian champions and contenders are to be found across every event at major track and field competition. Such prevalence was once the preserve of West Indies cricket that rose from modest foundations to attain its eventual position of superiority.

As it was finding itself in the first half of the 20th century, George Headley single-handedly buttressed the team’s batting through rare technical and mental skill; Learie Constantine was an all-rounder whose high-octane energy typified the West Indian character, much as Bolt has done, while a group of fast bowlers created an enduring legacy.

Its rise through the latter half of the 20th century can be sourced to its initial triumph in a series in England in 1950, a decisive breakthrough that brought forward a group of exciting players. In the 1960s, its exuberant style revitalised the sport in England and Australia, its originators; for 15 years, from 1980 to 1995, it did not lose a Test series.

Records of the plethora of their outstanding batsmen and bowlers confirm their ascendancy in that time.

All the while, athletics augmented cricket’s status without establishing a strictly West Indian identity. Jamaicans tended to relish Jamaican successes, Trinidadians their own.

On the other hand, the veneration for cricket’s heroes knew no such insular constraints.

The first indication of a decisive link between cricketers and track stars came after the West Indies Test victory over England at Leeds in 1976. A cable was dispatched from Leeds to Montreal – there was no Internet then – congratulating Trinidad and Tobago’s Hasely Crawford and Jamaica’s Don Quarrie on their 1-2 in the 100 metres and the reverse in the 200. The West Indies team immediately got one back hailing the cricket result.

Nine years on, the inevitable descent set in, triggered by the retirement of captain Viv Richards, the most intimidating batsman of his generation, and other key players.

As the effort continues to return West Indies cricket to its former glory and regenerate the trust of its public, athletes have stepped in to fill the breach.

Tony Cozier is the most experienced cricket writer and broadcaster in the Caribbean.