WATCHING this past week’s charity match between the West Indies and a World XI was a pleasure, and of course this was made even more special by the seventy-odd runs West Indies win. That the international cricketing brotherhood can come together despite the vast distances between home countries to support the victims of hurricane disaster in the Caribbean warms the heart, and speaks to the camaradery that cricket builds. It must have occurred to many after the match, however, that something has been going on that we may not yet realize.

What if told that at this moment, right now, we are in a golden age of West Indies cricket? That hardly seems a reasonable statement if one looks at our recent test and one-day international performances; does it? For decades the West Indies test team has struggled to reach anything near the success of its first golden age, in the 1970’s and 80’s. Going for many years without a test series loss, that team is renowned as one of the most dominant by the standards of any sport, much so cricket.

Now our test side only seems to regularly defeat teams like Bangladesh (which has improved much of late), losing most recently to New Zealand. To add insult to injury, we were largely undone by short-pitched fast bowling, long our trademark and a pillar of our success in the 70’s and 80’s. Finally, note that our one-day team has fallen so low that not only did we not automatically qualify for the next World Cup, but we were made to work hard to succeed in the qualifying tournament featuring associate members of the ICC.

And yet, we are in a golden age that will, perhaps, only really be appreciated after it has passed. The West Indies T20 team is clearly the best in the world, and has probably been the best for at least the last six years, when we first lifted the ICC T20 World Cup. Since then, we have lifted the trophy once more in the three tournaments held since, becoming the only side to do so twice in the competition’s history. Further, one could argue that the only reason we didn’t win the trophy in the tournament between our two wins was due to bad luck, as the match was rained out. The then captain Darren Sammy even remarked that “God” hadn’t wanted us to win.

It is important to note that these achievements stand tall as cricketing wonders because, unlike test cricket or even one day cricket where the better team does not often lose, T20s are very unpredictable, where a good performance by one or two players can quickly swing a match beyond recovery. Witness Marlon Samuels’ fifty in our first tournament victory, where only a few overs dominating the then finest T20 fast bowler, Lasith Malinga, propelled our side beyond the Sri Lankans.

Consistency in T20s is very hard to come by.
We can be so consistent, however, because if avid followers of the game pause and really think about it, the West Indies senior team sports probably six or seven players who would make it into any World XI. That means that more than half, almost two thirds of the very best players are West Indian, even though there are nine full cricketing nations and many more gaining full membership. How many sports feature such a high concentration of top players in one team? It is no wonder then that a World XI was beaten by over seventy runs, which amounts to a thrashing by T20 standards.

I want to point to another critical parallel between the last golden age and this one, in which commentators have related that our test players played significant cricket for overseas first class teams. This allowed them to hone their skills, and much the same, our current players can be found in almost every team of every T20 tournament held the world over. Young Guyanese Kemo Paul must be congratulated for being picked in this most elite side last week, and we must certainly hope that he will be able to similarly participate in these international tournaments.

As supporters of West Indies cricket, I believe we should not just focus on the team’s failures, but celebrate their many successes. T20 is still very new when compared to other formats of the game and thus lacks some degree of prestige, but gradually attitudes are changing. The charity match played last week, to my mind, not only served to raise much-needed funds for disaster victims, but it acted as a definitive illustration of what the Caribbean has achieved. That kind of pride and confidence can do the whole Caribbean a lot of good.