DESPITE the poor showing of our senior team on the field of play, and the persistent impasse off the field, cricket continues to animate the Caribbean in a way other sports have not been able to do. The reason is clear — no other sport is so tied to the region’s culture and its deeper struggle for dignity. Here in Guyana, it is one of the few areas of national life in which our historical ethnic divide is not overpowering and defining. As we have contended in these pages, cricket is too vital to our identity to be allowed to slide into permanent decay.That is why our spirits have been lifted by the recent triumph of our Under-19 team. It is one of those rare moments when the rest of the world is forced to look at our region with the respect we deserve. We join with the rest of the Caribbean in saluting our heroes. These young ambassadors’ victory is all the more important because they won a world competition against the backdrop of despair about the future of the sport in the region. As the young men from our Caribbean were fighting their way to the head of the line, their senior counterparts were once again locked in their now customary quarrel for more money. Whatever the merits of their demands for more compensation, somebody needs to let them know that their case would be much more enhanced by more superior returns on the field of play.

Four members of the victorious Under-19 team are part of the outstanding squad chosen by the experts. In our glory years, such an acknowledgement would have been routine. But given our struggles these days, having four outstanding players in a competition is cause for much celebration. Cricket is a team sport in which individual performances are meant to result in good showings of the team. Ultimately, it is how the contributions of eleven players, including those of the most talented ones, can be gelled together in pursuit of victory for the team. Critical to that process is the commitment of the individual players to that collective outcome. One got the sense that the success of our team in Bangladesh was largely driven by such a commitment. That was most refreshing for the Caribbean spirit.

Our team came home to a rousing welcome in Barbados, and we hope that when the players return to their individual countries, they are properly acknowledged. We have had a tendency in the region to honour our victorious teams with material things, such as land and houses. We advise against that route; we feel that the best gift to our young men is to invest in an improved cricket infrastructure that would aid these young men to further improve their skills and to train the next batch of Under-19 champions.

Here in Guyana, the impasse over who leads our cricket administration needs to be resolved forthwith; we simply cannot continue that way. Our senior team is having a great run in the current staging of the PCL; they also deserve support. It is time that we invest in a proper cricket academy that is geared towards preparing our next generations of cricketing ambassadors to engage in the struggle to retain the West Indian dignity and glory on the field of play and beyond the boundary.
Our Under-19 team has done us proud. We hope this victory is not allowed to be a flash in the pan; that our young men are not allowed to fall prey to the lure of cricket’s “bling.” Leadership is critical to this undertaking, but the support of the wider population is equally pivotal. Our young cricketers would benefit from playing before 5,000 spectators in the stands, rather than 500. We urge the public to return to the cricket grounds to watch games other that the popular T20s.