Insularity hurting WI cricket

THE EDITOR: There is something about West Indies cricket that has been irking me for a long time but I could not attain the courage to express my feelings until now. As far as I am concerned, there are two major issues facing West Indies cricket which are insularity and ethnic bias. If both issues are not removed from our cricketing agenda, the team will continue to suffer tremendously unless we reclaim our supremacy. The people of the Caribbean do not support the West Indies team; what happens in reality is that they support the players from their territory. Just imagine there is a West Indian flag (cricket) but on any given day you see a host of national flags being waved lustily for whom I wonder. The team’s victory if ever it happens is appreciated by all in a wanton display of hypocrisy; a loss brings fourth cries of bad management, unprofessionalism, lack of commitment and even anti-Trinidadianism.

As if that is not enough, there are a group of people who only want to see players of their ethnicity on the team making all the runs and taking all the wickets. They are so steeped in their paranoia that their claim is a spinner is the answer. The last quality spinner on the West Indies team was Inshan Ali, prior to him, there were Gibbs, Ramadin and Valentine. Are we true West Indians? The only one I know of is Sir Courtney Walsh. Cricket is not a unifying factor in the West Indies, it is a pacifying factor whenever the team wins.

EARL MARTIN
Trincity