Outaman for West Indies
The joy of cricket, which is to say, West Indies cricket, has gone out of me, and I don’t know if it will ever come back. West Indies cricket, through the West Indies cricket team, has put the West Indies as a region on the map of international respect and is perhaps the West Indian institution that has done so most prominently. The University of the West Indies has been an able competitor in this regard, as have West Indian scholarship and literature – three icons being Arthur Lewis, Eric Williams, and Derek Walcott – but they have not been able to command as much world respect as our cricket.
We command some respect in cultural entertainment as well, but it is miniscule compared to what cricket has brought. In any case, reggae, calypso, the steelband, and carnival, though they are West Indian, are not so in the sense of a regional will, purpose, or movement. No, cricket is the West Indian’s badge of respect on the international stage.
But the joy has gone out of it for me. What I feel now, too often for my good health, is a range of bitter emotions. Like anger, outrage, disappointment, frustration, depression, shame. Where, I rage wherever and whenever I observe our game, are the skill and the pride that conquered the world? Where is the fear and humiliation of the conquered – especially of the erstwhile masters of the colonial empire – that brought me so much delight, that made me laugh kya kya kya? Where is the intimidating, decapitating speed of my fast bowlers? Where is the fluent disdain of my batsmen? Where are my batsmen who made their wickets impregnable?
Things aren’t good at all these days. We have been whitewashed by South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia in test matches. We have been beaten within three days, bowled out twice in that meagre period. We haven’t been able to win a one-day series, or any series for that matter, for a long time now. Small totals are a constant challenge for our batsmen, even when it is the last innings and victory is there for the taking. Our batsmen buckle under the slightest pressure, and Brian Lara, who now must be under some unshakable blight or the other, can’t make a difference any more. Our young bowlers cannot hold their line and length, do not have enough speed, and have the greatest difficulty controlling that speed. Our fielders constantly let the ball escape to the boundary and drop catches as if that is normal, legitimate behaviour.
We are now international cricket’s floor-cloth, we who sat on the pedestal for more than a decade.
What explains this belly-churning, manhood-depleting scandal?
Of course, the mismanagement of the West Indies Cricket Board is a big factor, especially the Board’s treatment of former stars who have been dishonoured in their exodus from the team, and who have been neglected into selling their wares to our competitors. But it seems to me that the matter is much more fundamental than that. The answer seems to lie in the way we now train our cricketers.
Before the golden days, the village taught us the game, but now we rely on poorly organised club cricket, practice in the nets, and a turn here and there at a foreign academy. The West Indian village taught Sobers, the three Ws, Kanhai, Wes Hall, Haynes, Kallicharan, Ambrose, and those boys. And it had an institution like the one Tobagonians call(ed) outaman. But where is it now?
When I was a boy growing up in the village of Belle Garden, I thought we had the very best cricketers in the Caribbean, indeed the world, and to this day I hold that the biggest reason why, in the history of the game, only one Tobagonian has ever made it into the West Indian team – Lincoln Roberts, and for only one match – is big-island bias in the selection of the so-called national team. We played in Belle Garden (and the rest of Tobago) a form of cricket we called ‘out a man’. It taught you to master all the skills that cricket involves.
It taught you to bat, bowl, keep wicket, catch, and save boundaries. The game was focused on players earning a turn to bat by bowling, catching, stumping, or running out the incumbent batsman. The whole field, with no limits on the number of fielders, had a chance to bowl at the batsman. Each fielder was allowed to have an over of six balls, or any fielder that picked up the ball was allowed to bowl the ball or choose another fielder to bowl. If a player (including the wicketkeeper) caught or ran out the batsman, he could either go to the crease or choose another player to bat. The point is, everybody bowled at a batsman, and so every batsman had to learn to deal with all kinds of balls and defend his wicket while making runs. Batsmen learned to stay in their crease as long as possible, and bowlers tried every trick in the game to get them out.
Outaman was a village institution, part of the culture of the village. It sharpened the relevant senses. It made you fit. It focused you in the various skills of the game. Most importantly, it produced batsmen of great skill, finesse, and endurance.
But dramatic changes have occurred in the nature of the village, to the extent that my teenage son has never played outaman. He hasn’t had a whole village, so to speak, bowl at him and force him to learn to hold his wicket. And if he were playing cricket today, he would be with players from different districts, he would be in the nets, or perhaps he would be at an academy in Australia.
But my son would be playing like the present West Indies cricket team. What he should have been playing is outaman. If he wanted international respect.
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