GETTY, SHUTTERSTOCK
Cricket is a Trinidadian obsession; my younger brother and I played sprawling, never-ending games on dusty Tarmac with tree branches and tennis balls dipped in water. I wanted to listen to the game so badly that my father eventually bought a battered old radio. Few West Indians ever entertained the extravagant thought of travelling to England to watch their team play. We depended on radio commentaries from the BBC World Service. That’s how news about the first ever victory over England in the four-match Test series in 1950 spread across the Caribbean, prompting spontaneous outbursts of joy. There are West Indians today who could still quote precisely from the commentaries. As the West Indian batsmen pummelled the English bowlers, one commentator remarked, ‘This is the day England knew would come but prayed would never come. This is not cricket, it’s civilised murder.’
The significance of that first ever West Indian victory at Lord’s on 29 June went far beyond a memorable, if exaggerated, metaphor. The famous Trinidadian writer CLR James had posed the question, ‘What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’ James was indicating that in the West Indies, cricket has always been more than just a game. He wrote of one player, who was in every way described as the most reprehensible social outcast: