West Indies versus India. If we go back in time to the 1980s, this was the biggest cricket series of all for an Indian cricketer. And for fans,there was nothing better than watching the worlds best fast bowlers in action. A hundred against the West Indies fast bowling quartet was considered a kind of coming of age innings for any batsman. That we regard Sunil Gavaskar as one of the best ever is because he was able to master the West Indians at their peak in the 1970s and 1980s.
Australia might well have had a more robust system and cricketing structure in place but they lacked the flair the West Indians, under Clive Lloyd,brought to cricket. And with cricket continuing to struggle with the problem of half-empty grounds around the world, the sport needs to get back the flair Lloyd and party brought to it.
In the course of researching West Indies cricket and in discussions with experts like Sir Hilary Beckles, the best known scholar of the game in the Caribbean, it was evident that one of the fundamental issues was the lack of money in the game. Players from the recent past were often left to do clerical jobs, like acting as the liaison officer for a visiting India A team. For current players and young talent,cricket did not seem a worthwhile career choice. Even the Allen Stanford experiment in 2008, which offered West Indian stars fast and easy money was short-lived and controversial.
All this began to change in 2008, and funnily, with something that happened in faraway India the advent of the Indian Premier League(IPL). The IPL soon created a superstar out of a certain Kieron Pollard. Not having played a single Test match for the West Indies,Pollard was a million dollar man. He was in high demand with the IPL franchises and earned money unheard of in the ailing economies of the Caribbean. Pollard wasn't alone. If Pollard started the Caribbean invasion of the IPL, it was Gayle who took over the competition in seasons 4 and 5. Winning matches single-handedly for the Bangalore franchise, Gayle was soon the toast of the IPL. Coming from Jamaica,a country plagued with serious socio-economic issues, Gayle brought hope to aspiring West Indian cricketers. On the heels of Gayle and Pollard followed Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Bravo and Sunil Narine who won a $700,000 contract with the Kolkata Knight Riders and became Player of the IPL in Seasons 5, 6, 7. Seemingly from nowhere, West Indies had again become a force to reckon with in the shorter version of the game.
It is important to mention here that the IPL isn't the only cash cow the West Indians are milking. They are also playing the Big Bash in Australia and a host of other T20 tournaments around the world. Such leagues have nurtured a new band of million dollar professionals who have become world stars without making a mark in the Test match arena. Samuels, Pollard, Narine, Bravo, even Gayle are all underachievers in Test cricket, but they are stars in the T20 format.
While the West Indies are now a real force in T20 cricket, Test cricket in the Caribbean continues to languish. Not only does T20 cricket give you more visibility, more eyeballs and, in turn, more money it also attracts thousands to the grounds in the Caribbean. So, while Test cricket fights for survival, T20 cricket is rapidly gaining momentum.
The truth is world cricket today stands polarised. While Test cricket continues to be the prestige format in England and Australia,the traditional power centres of the game, T20 is the format of choice in the Caribbean.
And like with all things cricket at the moment, India has had a major role to play in this transformation. Sample this statistic: at the start of play on Day 1 of the Test match India played against the West Indies at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata, in November 2011, there were less than a thousand people in the stands. The very same Eden Gardens had witnessed riots when the West Indies played India on 1January 1967, was packed to capacity when Sunil Gavaskar was snapped up by Malcolm Marshall in the first ball of a Test match in 1983 andhad 50,000-plus people present when Sachin Tendulkar scored a match-saving century in 2002. Now, they flock to watch Gayle turn out for the Royal Challengers from Bangalore, Pollard, when he leads the charge for the Mumbai Indians, and adore Sunil Narine for winning the IPL for the Kolkata Knight Riders. There is in fact much anger in Kolkata that Narine has been called for suspect action.
