Dear Editor,
On the cricket front one does not hear much about Prof Beckles now-a-days, which is a good thing that would enable the professor to pay more attention to his scholarly work, in which he excels, and less attention to cricket. His cricket advice has not been helpful for the very simple reason that he has made the progress of West Indian cricket too tied up with formal education. The professor was correct in his prediction that Jason Holder would become a very successful test cricketer, but completely wrong in his belief that what was lacking most in the talented cricketers were formal education and patriotism.
There is reason to believe that Prof Beckles was aware of the critical role that Rudy Webster, an eminent West Indian psychologist had played in the making of Vivian Richards, perhaps the most successful West Indian batsman, and indeed, in the making of the greatest West Indies team ever. Beckles, in his book Cricket without a Cause, described Webster as “an architect in the Third Rising of West Indies Cricket, mental manager of Clive Lloyd’s team in the 1970’s, and early eighties” (Page139), but never had another word to say about Webster or about mental gymnastics in his writings or speeches. He could speak only about greed and about education while it was absolutely clear that what our players needed most was help in preparing themselves mentally to compete against players whose main ambition was revenge for the humiliation West Indian cricketers of the Lloyd and Richards era had visited upon them.
Yours faithfully,
Romain Pitt.
