Rivalry steeped in history and greatness
The West Indies’ three-match Test series in England is an opportune moment to see in what ways the rivalry between the two may have evolved.
These days, any series involving the West Indies is just another opportunity for cricket tragics to reminisce about the memories and joyful banter of yore while often witnessing with mouths agape the terminal tailspin of Caribbean cricket since the late 1990s.
“When Jamaicans or Trinidadians living in Britain in the ’60s and ’70s watched the West Indies play England, they felt a common unity and a fraternal togetherness that they had rarely experienced in their lives before. In short, the West Indian cricket team brought people together,” Simon Lister, the author of Fire in Babylon: How the West Indies Cricket Team Brought a People to its Feet, told Sportstar.
Never had this been more evident than during the vematch Test series against England in 1976. It was a seminal moment where the postwar Caribbean exodus to Britain and racism intersected to provide an emotionally charged backdrop to cricket.
Tony Greig, the blond South Africaborn captain of England, said he would make the West Indies team grovel. “Greig was a showman who liked making big gestures. This one backred,” said Lister.
Former England fast bowler Mike Selvey, called in for the third Test at Old Traord, remembers the “exhilarating” series. “Not an experience I would change for anything,” he said. “There was a familiarity [with the West Indies players] though in a sense because I had been playing against Gordon Greenidge since he was 15 or 16, Clive (Lloyd) was at Lancashire, Viv (Richards) at Somerset, Roy Fredericks had been at Glamorgan, Alvin Kallicharran and Deryck Murray with Warwickshire, and Andy Roberts at Hampshire, and Vanburn Holder at Worcester. It was getting them all in one package that was tricky.”
Michael Holding’s spell at the Oval in 1976 brutally exposed the English batsmen. Snorting bouncers at express pace hurt their bodies and bruised their pride. Holding took 14 wickets for 149 in the last Test.
Selvey recalled Holding’s display at the Oval. “It has to be one of the greatest ever by a fast bowler. The pitch was so unforgiving, the outeld totally parched, the weather hot and the playing area huge. Just look at the gures of the other pacemen in the game such as Andy, Vanburn and Bob Willis and see how absurd Mikey’s gures were.
“He bowled very fast, full and straight. Hindsight says that obviously the conditions were perfect for reverse swing, but I was certainly not aware of the phenomenon and I know Bob wasn’t. Whether Mikey did I cannot say, but with the full length, pace through the air and the ground conditions, he was probably reversing it a bit... I dragged one on the rst ball in the rst innings.”
The Oval, Selvey recalled, had a celebratory air to it. “The grounds (Old Traord and the Oval) on both occasions were far from full and the West Indies supporters were a relatively small if vocal element,” he said.
The West Indies won the vetest series by a resounding 30 margin. “[It’s a] cliché, I know, but they really did prefer to let the ball do all their talking. They seemed all the more mean for it. It’s just how they chose to
play the game,” said Selvey. both were.
“What many don’t realise is that Brian took a single in the rst over from the Stretford End and then faced every single ball delivered by Michael Holding bowling from the Warwick Road End. He played the bouncers superbly if you watch carefully: there are those who would say he nearly got hit on the head several times, but the point is he didn’t because he watched the ball and moved his head out of the way.
“The times he did get struck on the body were from deliveries just short of a length that hit the crack and jagged back at him, so they were impossible to avoid. Seeing him afterwards, I would be surprised if he hadn’t got cracked ribs because of course there was no body armour. [It’s] worth mentioning too that, a, England did not lose a wicket in those ■0 minutes; b, after all that, Brian Close was 1 not out at the close; c, I was very grateful to both as I was padded up as nightwatchman.”
Selvey felt the allure of watching the West Indies in action was hard to resist back in the day because “certainly in my time the West Indies were one of the best if not the best team of all, and packed with legends.”
According to Lister, matches involving the West Indies and England have never lacked in context. “It is as impossible to separate the West Indian people from their history as it is impossible to uncouple West Indian cricket from the region’s history,” he said.
“It would be naïve to say that the West Indies played cricket in a certain way, simply due to racism. What is true is that many of those people who supported the West Indies in England had experienced the crudity of institutional racism in their lives when it came to housing, education or their jobs. So what the cricket team did was to oer a temporary balm to that injustice. The cricketers oered an example of Black sporting excellence which couldn’t be ignored.”
The 1976 series was deeply signicant for that West Indian side because they had been blown away by Australia and had played indierently against India at home. “Had they lost in England, it could have cost Lloyd the captaincy. As it was, the 30 victory was the beginning of a decade of authority for a team of superb batsmen, bowlers and elders. It gave them condence, which replaced their previous brittleness and allowed them to play with a new freedom,” said Lister.
Over the years, payment disputes and the availability and selection of players for OneDay International (ODI) and Test cricket have led to a steep fall in the popularity of the game in the Caribbean. Moreover, the rapid evolution of T20 cricket has led to many of the West Indies’ star players prioritising overseas leagues over domestic cricket.
Meanwhile, over the last ve years, England prioritised whiteball cricket, which culminated in Eoin Morgan’s men winning the ODI World Cup for the rst time in July 2019. The team currently occupies the top spot in the ICC rankings for the 50over format and is No. 2 in T20 internationals. But it is placed fourth in the Test rankings, and Ashley Giles, the managing director for English cricket, said two months after the ODI World Cup win that the country will “redress the balance” between red and whiteball cricket over the next few years.
In their most recent series, the West Indies defeated the visiting England side 21 to win the Wisden Trophy in JanuaryFebruary 2019. But English Test cricket received a llip in the form of Ben Stokes’ heroics in the Ashes later in the year, and the 29yearold allrounder — who was named Man of the Match in last year’s ODI World Cup nal and the 2019 Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World — will lead his team in the rst Test against the West Indies in the absence of regular skipper Joe Root.
Fortyfour years from the events of that tumultuous 1976 series, the West Indies’ threematch Test series in England is an opportune moment to see in what ways this rivalry may have evolved.