The India-West Indies series is well underway and while the Test series saw the Windies outclassed by the men in blue, Jason Holder and his team have bounced back in the One Day Internationals, earning a hard-fought tie in the second game in Visakhapatnam. While the visitors wait for that elusive win, here is a small history lesson about the Caribbean cricketing nation.
The West Indies is not one country. Not many would be surprised to know this. Most don't realise that even though Chris Gayle and Usain Bolt are Jamaican, the Olympic champion represents Jamaica and Gayle hits massive sixes for West Indies. So why doesn't Gayle play for Jamaica, you wonder? Well, he does. The West Indies comprises 15 English speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean that play under a common banner.
The current West Indies cricket team represents several independent states and dependencies including Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, British Virgin Island, US Virgin Islands among others. Most of these were dominions that later became independent nations.
While they play together on the international stage, each country has its own national team and are fiercely competitive when they face each other in the Regional Four Day Competition or the Caribbean Premier League.
Previously British colonies, the Caribbean nations were introduced to cricket by the white settlers. From the 1890s, teams were selected from the various islands to play visiting English teams and to tour England. In 1926, the West Indies Cricket Board, together with those of India and New Zealand, were inducted into the Imperial Cricket Council (now the International Cricket Council), and in 1928, played their first recognised international match, taking on England at Lord's.
Despite being the minority, whites dominated the West Indian teams till the 1950s. Frank Worrell became the first black captain in 1960 and, along with his successor Garry Sobers, changed the composition of the team, laying the foundation for the team, which went on to become one of the greatest, not just in the history of the gentleman’s game, but in the history of sports.
Another reason for the Caribbean nations playing as a single unit is that the combined population of these islands is just six million. To put this into perspective, Kerala, a relatively small Indian state, has a population of 34 million while the small island nation of Sri Lanka has a population of 20 million. Interestingly, though, the Caribbean nations have their own teams for every other sport and have held their own. Jamaica, for example, has dominated athletics for the past decade and even qualified for the FIFA World Cup in 1998.
As the West Indies comprises independent countries, a special flag was created for the team showing a palm tree and stumps on a small island, all against a maroon background. Rally Round the West Indies written by David Rudder is used as the team's anthem.
The West Indies is much more than just a sports team. They are a symbol of pride and hope and their success on the cricket field united a region in tatters in the post colonial period. As former West Indian cricket legend Michael Holding said, “We have different flags, different currencies, different accents and different national anthems... Cricket is the only thing the West Indies do together.”