Crick­et, love­ly crick­et is unloved and dy­ing a slow death in the West In­dies and no one seems to care. Our re­gion­al pas­time that has for so long glued di­verse com­mu­ni­ties to­geth­er and put steel in our char­ac­ter and even de­fied an em­pire has been aban­doned. Crick­et was the ral­ly­ing ban­ner for Headley, Valen­tine, Weekes, Wal­cott, Wor­rell and Sobers, glad­i­a­tors who used their bats to set West In­di­an self-de­ter­mi­na­tion bench­marks high on columns of the British Em­pire, the same way Jesse Owens crushed the Third Re­ich's doc­trine of Ar­i­an su­prema­cy un­der his run­ning shoes at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Many, in­clud­ing Trinida­di­an in­tel­lec­tu­al CLR James, framed crick­et as much big­ger than a game: "Crick­et is first and fore­most a dra­mat­ic spec­ta­cle. It be­longs with the the­atre, bal­let, opera and the dance." The leisure­ly dis­trac­tion used to tame the colonies be­came the biggest patch­work in the cul­tur­al fab­ric of the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean.

Sons of the Caribbean mas­tered the game and used it as a cog in the gear that lift­ed the peo­ple from servi­tude to a high­er al­ti­tude of self-re­spect. Self-gov­ern­ment quick­ened be­cause the re­gion's crick­et pi­o­neers hooked the colo­nial­ist leg-break­ers high over square-leg, out of sta­di­ums, dis­pelling the king­dom's myth that its dark-skinned sub­jects were of a less­er rank. A vi­sion of Spar­ta­cus ris­ing up from blood-soaked sands of Ro­man col­i­se­ums to be­come the hero to his peo­ple, Con­rad Hunte dust­ed the sug­ar plan­ta­tion grime from his mind and swung his bat like a field mar­shall's ba­ton. Even af­ter re­tir­ing from the game he con­tin­ued to so­cial­ly de­vel­op com­mu­ni­ties wher­ev­er he went. In­deed, crick­et is a metaphor for life. Start­ing with the six balls an over, de­liv­ered to the bats­man by the bowler.

Each de­liv­ery is loaded with a new chal­lenge and ex­pec­ta­tion, forc­ing ad­just­ments in style and at­ti­tude, the same way we pre­pare to face the trou­bles and op­por­tu­ni­ties tossed in­to our lives. Some peo­ple are bet­ter equipped than oth­ers to deal with the un­ex­pect­ed, but each ob­sta­cle grants new ways to make things bet­ter. When a spin bowler flights a ball to a school­boy who shuf­fles grace­ful­ly down the pitch to meet it, and the ball hits the ground, breaks to­wards or away from his bat, the stu­dent learns geom­e­try and trigonom­e­try. Be­fore his next math­e­mat­ics class he will have es­ti­mat­ed the ball's ve­loc­i­ty, an­gu­lar move­ment and lev­el of spin-fric­tion ap­plied by the bowler. We have seen bats­men couri­er the ball with rapid pre­ci­sion, de­liv­er­ing it to the bound­ary for four or six–tak­ing con­trol of the field, demon­strat­ing self-as­sur­ance.

But there are those who swing their bats at will, at­tempt­ing al­ways to dis­patch the ball for six, ex­press­ing ir­ra­tional ex­u­ber­ance–like a bull­ish stock trad­er ex­pect­ing good re­sults with­out due dili­gence–on­ly to have their stumps up­root­ed and tum­bled like the stock mar­ket of 1929, and again in 2008. But a good bats­man knows how to man­age un­cer­tain­ties. To cov­er his stumps–be­ing on guard–pro­tect­ing his wick­et as he would his fam­i­ly–plac­ing his bat and pad close,?his front-foot for­ward in­to the ball, care­ful­ly rolling it back to the bowler, pre­serv­ing his wick­et the way he would his val­ues and char­ac­ter. In­deed, there should be an in­sti­tute that pro­cures and teach­es the in­sight­ful phi­los­o­phy of crick­et. In­stead crick­et fields are emp­ty as young boys dream of be­com­ing Michael Jor­don in­stead of Bri­an Lara.

Ac­cord­ing to one of Ja­maica's finest sports ed­i­tors, the West In­dies no longer wins match­es and the glam­our of foot­ball (soc­cer) and bas­ket­ball are at­tract­ing the youths. Ma­jor com­pa­nies no longer spon­sor provin­cial games, as a re­sult of which play­er wages are mea­gre. But worse of all, most peo­ple be­lieve the game takes too long–a Test match takes five days. Crick­et's aim is for play­ers to ne­go­ti­ate with one an­oth­er in a free and shape­less at­mos­phere, an un­hur­ried chess match of diplo­mat­ic di­a­logue where gen­tle­men seam­less­ly trans­form strat­e­gy and tac­tics in­to a dance, out­wit­ting their op­po­nents in an air of dig­ni­ty. This is the tem­pera­ment our youths need to sub­due ag­gres­sive be­hav­iour that of­ten end­ed at the ceme­tery. Pa­tience and per­se­ver­ance still have their place in com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

But this gen­er­a­tion is built on haste, be­ing dragged to un­known des­ti­na­tions by an avalanche of in­for­ma­tion spray­ing out of cel­lu­lar phones, satel­lite tele­vi­sion, Black­ber­ry, video games and iPods, to name a few. We have turned from the wis­dom of our fore­par­ents, trad­ing con­tem­pla­tive dis­course for in­stant grat­i­fi­ca­tion, cre­at­ing fast foods but slow peo­ple, in­stead of slow foods and nim­ble in­di­vid­u­als. Us­ain Bolt, the fastest man alive, would agree that roast­ing a piece of yam, like a good crick­et match, can­not be hus­tled. Haul­ing crick­et up a steep hill to fit in­to our bustling lifestyle, in­stead of us­ing it to es­cape, is a mis­take. Crick­et, love­ly crick­et is the barom­e­ter that mea­sures the West In­dies health and self-con­fi­dence. Re­mem­ber when tran­sis­tor ra­dios in homes and streets thun­dered with fran­tic laugh­ter and loud, crack­ling claps of balls ex­plod­ing from Fred­er­icks, Haynes, Lloyd, Richard and Richard­son's bat and smash­ing in­to the bound­ary?

Hu­man scor­ing ma­chines whip­ping the ball with fury and in­tel­li­gence. It was al­so a time when West In­di­an pace bowlers shot light­ning bolts from their fin­gers. Hold­ing, Croft, Roberts and Gar­ner flashed bounc­ers and in-swingers that pinned men of great na­tions to bat­ting creas­es–where they trem­bled, their bats re­fus­ing to hit balls that trav­elled so quick­ly–de­mol­ish­ing wick­ets that tum­bled down like drunk­en domi­noes. Boys were in­spired, sum­moned by the gods to be­come Alvin Kallichar­rans and Gor­don Greenidges by any means nec­es­sary, us­ing any gear and avail­able space–the streets, farm­lands–with bats made from co­conut branch­es and balls carved out of wood. The pow­er and might of the West In­dies was of Her­cules and Sam­son com­bined.

Yes in­deed, crick­et, love­ly crick­et is the lan­guage the West In­dies us­es to com­mu­ni­cate with the world.

The game has el­e­vat­ed the peo­ple's self-con­fi­dence be­fore and will again. But the crick­et board can­not con­tin­ue to hatch­et a sport so deeply root­ed and loved in­to frag­ments. Twen­ty-over match­es may be fine, but what is next, dri­ve-through hap­py-meal crick­et? Long live crick­et in her spa­cious, pa­tience and vir­tu­ous time and space where the old can re­lax and share wis­dom with the young. Tra­di­tion still has a place. Let us re­move West In­dies crick­et from its sick bed and in­to our hearts and nurse it back to health.

Jef­fery Wright

On­tario, Cana­da

jef­fery.wright@live.ca