No Early End To The Decline In West Indies Cricket

The decline had been palpable for some years now and so perhaps it was inevitable that this should happen. Still, West Indies not qualifying for the ICC World Cup will be disappointing news for cricket fans who over the years have come to admire their unique brand of cricket that had seen them scale the Mount Everest of the game in more than one format.

Oh yes, at a time like this there will be those who will recall with a glint in their eyes that once upon a time there was an international cricket team that was rated as arguably the greatest of all time. They had an array of stroke playing batsmen, a fearsome quartet of pace bowlers, acrobatic fields men and a swagger in their attitude that could intimidate their opponents.

For about 15 years from 1980 West Indies ran roughshod over every team, winning matches with uncanny ease, finishing them with a day or two to spare, quite often emerging victorious by an innings and plenty. They set all sorts of world records, the most notable being eleven successive victories and remaining unbeaten for 27 Tests besides notching up two consecutive 5-0 ‘backwashes’ of England.

And along the way they were the pioneers in showing the world how limited overs cricket should be played by winning the first two World Cup competitions in 1975 and 1979 before going down to a shock defeat to India the third time around.

The West Indies dominated the game like no other team before it. Older players retired but the replacements were just as effective, brilliant or dynamic and the reign at the top continued. There seemed no end to their dominance but in 1995 the impregnable ‘wall’ finally crashed.

Touring the Caribbean that year the Australians won the four-match series 2-1 and after 15 years and 29 series world cricket’s longest lasting dynasty was overthrown. The previous occasion that the West Indies lost a series was in March 1980 when they had gone down narrowly in New Zealand. Since then they have won 20 and drawn nine (including two one-off Tests).

Today, all this seems so long ago that one has to really jog one’s memory to believe that it really happened. West Indies cricket is in the doldrums and failing to qualify for the World Cup is only the latest in a series of humiliations even if it is the most distressing of them all.

Various theories have been spelt out by the experts as to the West Indian downfall but they all come to the same conclusion that this has happened as they have not been able to field their best players. Most of them prefer to play in lucrative T-20 leagues all over the world.

The West Indian players are among the most popular when it comes to these competitions given their traditional brand of cricket which is suited to the shortest format.

For example during the World Cup qualifiers, West Indies didn't have the services of Shimron Hetmyer, Andre Russell or Sunil Narine, all of whom are not in the 18 member central contract list released last year by Cricket West Indies (CWI).

All of them had voluntarily opted out to peddle their wares in T20 leagues throughout the year. Under the circumstances it is difficult to create a cohesive, settled unit.

Their ouster from World Cup qualifiers might have disappointed millions but shocked only a few as it was always round the corner. Having won the T-20 World Cup titles in 2012 and 2016, the West Indies have been on a downward spiral and are currently at No 7 in the ICC rankings.

They could not make the Champions Trophy in 2017 after falling outside the top eight. They finished ninth among ten teams in the 2019 ICC World Cup, and in the World Test Championship 2019-21 and 2021-23 cycles they ended up being eighth from nine teams. In the T-20 World Cup in 2021, the two-time champions managed just one win. In last year's T-20 World Cup they made a first round exit.

But there could be other reasons too and former skipper Jason Holder touched upon this aspect when he appealed to fellow cricketers to shun the territorial mindset and come together "as a region" for the good of the sport.

“Cricket is not an individual thing or a territorial thing. We've got to come together as a region and really think about how we want to go forward as a group and make it happen,” he said after West Indies were knocked out of the competition in Zimbabwe last week.

The CWI, the governing body of the team, consists of six associations, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad & Tobago and Windward Islands. Holder said no short-term patchwork could help West Indies cricket and changes will have to take place at the grassroots level. “It's not a quick-fix, it's something we need to spend time on. This is the most important thing, where we can just put things in place and develop our talent,” he said.

Even if that happens it will take a long time for West Indies to claw their way back in international cricket for reports have it that cricket in the Caribbean is not as popular as it was and youngsters are taking more and more to sports like football, baseball and basketball. Under the circumstances there seems to be no early end to the continuing decline of West Indian cricket.