WWhen they toured abroad in the 1970s, cricketers of West India were sometimes subjected to spurages of racist abuse. But at home in the Caribbean, the men were heroes, with families huddled around radios and televisions when they played and shout from jubilation that burst over entire communities when they won.
Today, the generation of players who won two world cups in 1975 and 1979 is praised as living legends to step up the fold, regardless of the challenges – and Triumphing about teams of larger, more developed countries.
And while the region is celebrating the emancipation month to commemorate the end of slavery, they are praised as figures from regional pride whose control of a game was imported by the British a powerful symbol of politics and cultural resistance.
Earlier this month, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) organized the very first Emancipation Cricket Festival, which described the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Carlos James, as a reminder of the powerful link “between our emancipation, resistance, our Caribbean culture and the birth of Caribbean Cicket”.
“Some people ask, why links your cricket – what a game of the English is – to emancipation. How does it correlate? Well, it was a period in which every Caribbean national was glued to their radios … their television sets, to follow these men who went in the middle of the cricket,” said James.
By touring – and winning – that generation of athletes sent a powerful message, he said: “They made a political explanation that we are young black men from small Caribbean islands – and we can dominate the world.”
James said that understanding the link between sport and politics – and the collective passion for the game could breathe new life into – could help to turn the tide for today’s West – Team of today, which has performed badly in recent competitions.
St Vincent and the Prime Minister of the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, one of the strongest voices of the region for reparations from Europe for the genocide of indigenous peoples and the slavery of African people, said that the purpose of the emancipation party was to bring consciousness in the period of struggle and resistance of the region.
“Cricket, a game brought to us … by the British settlers, our own existential instrument to help our search for national liberation, freedom, equality, fairness and justice,” he said.
“We have absorbed this English sport, under the knee, crossed his boundaries, made our own, re -defined – and took the borders.”
He added that today ‘cricket culture’ remained vital to the region.
But that is the state of Caribbean cricket that Caricom, the regional block of 15 countries, recently said that it was “deeply worried … about all aspects of the current state of the game in the region”.
In a statement, Caricom said: “Cricket has been a platform for decades, so that our small countries have been collectively on the world stage. West -India Cricket is very much a ‘audience good’.”
It added that ‘the [West Indies] The recent performance of the team is a moment of settlement for this cherished Caribbean institution. “
Describe cricket as a “glue that kept us together”, welcomed Sir Clive Lloyd, who twice led the West -India to the World Cup victory, the intervention by Caricom and said: “We are not very rich territory and [it will be good] If they can inject cash and whatever it is necessary. “
Kesrick Williams, 35, a former cricket player from St. Vincent, said that some of today’s players became disillusioned and needed more support. He called for a change in the general culture of West -India Cricket to breathe new life into passion for sport in children and young people. “I can’t say when I saw cricket on the road for the last time and the traffic had to stop. We have to rebuild that cricket culture and the strong love for the game,” he said.
“Growing up, what a smile would conjure up on my father’s face was looking at cricket. As a young person when I saw that … I fell in love with cricket.”
James said Caricom hoped to include the cricket heroes of the 70s – who recently were the subject of a set of a memorial stamp in SVG – in discussions about the game:
“Most legends are still there. And if we can take our passion that they have, and we move that from their generation to the next generation Caribbean cricketers, it will make a lot of difference.”
#Caribbean #breathe #life #passion #pride #cricket #region