For all its global hype, ‘Back to the Future Day’ last Wednesday might just have escaped your attention.
As it was explained in hundreds of newspapers and websites, ‘Back to the Future II’ was the title of a 1989 movie that propelled its two main characters, Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown forward to October 21, 2015. It was a sequel to an earlier edition when the two made the reverse trip back to 1955. Some of what writer/director Robert Zemecki prophesised have materialised (video chat is now Skype, cars run on alternative fuel, thumbprints can open doors and pay bills, the Chicago Cubs may not be at long last baseball’s World Series champions yet they are in the final playoffs); others (flying cars and skateboards, West Indians will be amused to learn, the banning of lawyers!) will have to wait for ‘Back to the Future III’.
As the series was out of Hollywood, cricket didn’t merit a mention. The alternatives for the distinctly unAmerican game may be found in the 1980 and 1990 editions of The West Indies Cricket Annual.
I was the publisher and editor during the Annual’s 21 years existence. For 1980 and 1990, I commissioned articles from an administrator, a player, an umpire, a sponsor and a fan asking them to outline how they saw the coming decade. The separate panels comprised Peter Short and Steve Camacho, the board officiaIs, Deryck Murray and Jeffrey Dujon, the players, Gerry Gomez and Lloyd Barker, the umpires, O.K.Melhado, director of Desnoes and Geddes, the company that brewed Red Stripe and authors John Figueroa and Ian McDonald, the devotees. None of their projections was as fanciful as those of ‘Back to the Future’. They seemed mainly guided by developments in the previous decade. Speaking from understandably different perspectives, administrators and players agreed that their relationship was vital for the wellbeing of the regional game. Through three strikes and down to the latest turmoil over the team’s unprecedented withdrawal of the tour of India last October, the issue has been a destabilizing influence. The dismissal of incumbent captain in India, Dwayne Bravo, and Keiron Pollard from the ODI squad has indirectly yet clearly led to the suspension of head coach Phil Simmons.
Bravo, Pollard and several others are on the books of Indian Premier League (IPL) teams and other domestic T20s franchises not envisaged even at the turn of the 21st century. They have played virtually no WICB cricket in recent times. In a separate article in the 1970s Annual,
