Dear Editor,
Like the dominant Clive Lloyd and Vivian Richards teams of the past, once again our West Indies cricket team has given me that sense of what it means to be West Indian. Congratulations to our West Indies teams, both men and women, on their victories in the T20 world cups recently concluded in India. The women’s team surprised me. Australia, England and New Zealand have always been dominant in women’s cricket and they were mountains our women always found difficult to climb. If we succeeded in overcoming one there stood another. But they persevered. If memory served me correctly, the last time the men won, the women were also in the finals. Unfortunately, they lost then. But, in true West Indian fashion, they persevered and came through this time, regardless of the mountains placed before them. I’m so proud of them in their first victory.
However, I would like to see more Indian women playing cricket in the Caribbean. I could be wrong but I think they are being discouraged by family members who probably feel our Indian women should not be on the pitch. To them I say, look at the India and Pakistan teams. I personally knew of a left handed Indian girl who was very good and would’ve made it internationally had she not been discouraged by family and friends to pursue sports. I hope this victory will encourage more women to be active in cricket.
Now for the men. This is what we’re capable of when we put our best team on the pitch. Because of political squabbles with the board, players not making themselves available, or a combination of both, we never seem to field our best eleven. Take the last tour of Australia. We were struggling there while some of our best players were in the same country playing professionally. When we put our best team on the field we are hard to beat. Our only loss was to Afghanistan; a match we didn’t mind losing since we were already into the semis. (It was cute of some of our players to go over and congratulate the Afghans after the loss. Now the Afghans can boast that they are the only team to beat the champs in this tournament; a plus for Afghanistan cricket).
It was one of the most thrilling finishes. If a West Indies fan says he (or she) didn’t think we had lost at the beginning of that final over, He lie! That was a tall order. And to knock off those runs with two balls to spare? Unbelievable. The good news was Gayle did not have to be a big scorer for us to win matches. In every game another player stepped up. Some critics (not the “brainless” one) who predicted a West Indies victory were harping on West Indies batting power and they were proved right.
Although I must admit it was bad timing for Captain Sammy to voice his disappointment with the WICB (wrong place and time), I do understand the frustration of the players with the lack of support for our board. However, it was healthy of the players to do it for the faithful die-hard West Indies fans.
It was also beautiful to see the victorious women’s team right there supporting then celebrating with the men. It was very sporting of the many Indian fans to support us in the finals even though we had knocked their team out of the competition. It demonstrated how much Indians love the game of cricket.
Once again, congratulations to the West Indies on their victories in the Men, Women and Under Nineteen T20 championships even though I’m not a big fan of this shortest version of the game. I sincerely hope we take this dominance to the 50 overs and test form of the game.
Yours faithfully,
Malcolm Alves
