Can Caribbean cricket get its groove back
The winner of the Champions Trophy in 2004 and of the 1975 and 1979 World Cups, the West Indies team is currently in danger of not being able to qualify for the next World Cup cricket competition in 2019.
Fans of cricket struggle to comprehend the decline in cricket’s West Indies team, comprised of players from 15 nations, British dependencies, and other Caribbean territories, such as Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica, and Barbados.
In this part of the globe, cricket has never been merely a game. In the struggle of the 20th century against British dominance, the game of cricket was essential to the Caribbean’s independence struggle.
As of 2015, my research on Guyana as well as Trinidad and Tobago found, the meaning of cricket has changed. For young people who are poor, it is considered a means to get to escape poverty and enter the world of luxury.
The West Indies Cricket Team celebrates after winning an international tournament in the year 2016. This year’s tournament isn’t as than confetti-filled. Adnan Abidi/Reuters
Cricket liberation
British colonists first created the sport at the turn of the 19th century as an exclusively male-dominated imperial sport and quickly attracted Afro-Caribbean players.
Afro-Caribbeans were admitted to into the West Indies Cricket Team in 1900. By the 1940s, they had become dominant numerically. in 1960, an African-Caribbean male, Frank Worrell, became the first captain of blacks in the West Indies Cricket Team.
Sir Frank Worrell, far right in 1961. The National Archive of Australia/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
The same desire to belong inspired the cricketing dreams of Caribbeans of Indian origin, whose family members had come into the area as indentured labourers following the abolishment of slavery in 1834.
Indo-Caribbean players who are now associated with cricket, particularly the two countries of Guyana and Trinidad Also, they initially saw cricket as a means to establish the Indo-Caribbean cultural identity.
Caribbean cricket stories and stories tend to be focused on the game’s connection to anti-colonial resistance, and the growth of a united West Indian consciousness against the white planter class. This is commonly referred to as liberation cricket.
A Guyanese athlete in Trinidad
However, modern Caribbean cricket is quite different. In the last two decades, the rise of globalization and the commercialization of cricket have mostly eliminated its political roots.
The new cricket story is told through Sukdeo Sisnarine, who is 23 years old. Hopeful Guyanese cricketer who is a part of the Trinidadian local cricket team.
It’s more than a sports event. Adnan Hossain, the Author, provided
Sukdeo was linked to a club via former players. He arrived in Trinidad to begin his initial time after a brief phone call with a manager from the club. This is a standard international practice for recruiting in Trinidad.
He now travels to Trinidad between January and June every calendar year for a game. When I first met him at a cricket club, it was only his second time there.
Guyanese are the biggest group of athletes from overseas playing in the Trinidadian cricket league. In 2015, more than 25 of the thirty international players were Guyana-born. Guyana (the company is home to around 100 or so cricketers).
Although geographically situated within South America, Guyana is culturally Caribbean and is among the least developed countries in South America, having an estimated GDP per capita of $7,900 in 2016.
However, Trinidad is one of the Caribbean’s wealthiest nations. Last year, its estimated GDP per head was US$31,900.
For players from less developed Caribbean nations like Guyana, Trinidad’s semi-professional cricket league can provide financial opportunities. Guyanese players can participate in competitive cricket, while making cash as a side income.