Featured: The rise and fall of West Indies cricket

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When cricket was born in this world, there was only one format in which the game was played. It was Test cricket. Men dressed in white clothing, cricket was played with red ball and the matches would last a good 5-6 days. Can you imagine in today’s age, people waiting for that long to see who won the match? 

Even if you ask the biggest cricket lover today, I don’t think that he/she will wait that long. With time, everything changes and cricket is no exception to this phenomenon. Slowly and steadily, the game underwent a revolution, wherein we had two new formats introduced and eventually witnesses cricket being played in three formats; Test cricket, one day cricket and T20 cricket. We, human beings, always like to experiment or try something new. Test cricket was tried and tested. However when one day cricket was introduced in the early 1970s, it was but natural that there would be shift in focus from Test cricket to one day cricket. Similarly somewhere in the beginning of 21^st century, when the T20 form of cricket hit the ground, there was a lot of buzz surrounding the sport. From the cricket standpoint, it was believed that playing the sport in three formats would help individual cricketers to be better players, who could adjust and adapt to the needs of the game.

Some teams like Australia and South Africa did benefit, however the team that suffered the most due to the rising popularity of T20 cricket and plummeting glory of Test cricket was the West Indies. The Caribbean team which was once considered to be one of the best Test teams in the world, has moved down to the bottom off the ICC rankings, at the number eight position, having minnows like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe behind them. On the contrary, they have notched the number one rank in the ICC T20 rankings. What does this indicate? Is it that the West Indians are more inclined towards the shorter version of cricket than the longer one? Or is it that the West Indies have ceased to produce cricketers that can shoulder the enormous burden of Test cricket? 

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There is no doubt that West Indies Test cricket is experiencing lack of cricketing talent. In the 1980s the West Indies team flaunted an envious ‘four-pronged’ pace attack that generally included Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, and Joel Garner. Among them they had over a 1000 wickets. It was not just about the wickets, it was about the aura that the Caribbean pace bowlers had around them. Michael Holding was known as ‘whispering death’ for he had a quite run-up and could just frighten the batsman with his sheer pace.

Though their bowling battery was much talked about, West Indies also produced some of all-time great Test batsmen like Sir Viv Richards, Brian Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, all of whom averaged more than 50 in their careers spanning over a 15 years. The declining Test record of West Indies seemed like the sun was setting on the Caribbean empire. West Indies saw the new blood taking over. Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and Darren Sammy soon became the wonder boys not only in West Indies but also around the world. The West Indian fans would have liked their stars to continue playing Test cricket, but may be the buzz around T20 cricket had a greater influence on them. It could have been the money or the crazy fan following or the adrenaline rush that the T20 cricket comes with, which may have made it attractive to them. All three of them have retired from the longest format of the game, however they still play the one day cricket and more often than not, T20 cricket. Be it the Indian Premiere League (IPL) or the Australian Big Bash League (BBL), Chris Gayle is the man to watch out for. Earlier it was believed that if you are a great Test player, you can definitely be great in the other formats. But now I think the times have changed. The new breed of players have started turning their backs to Test cricket and feel that T20 is the only ultimate Test.

The rise of West Indies cricket team to the top of T20 rankings is something to boast of, but may be this achievement has come with a pinch of salt. In the end, I would just like to ask the West Indies cricket fans, is the success in T20 sweet or salty?