But Griffith continued to take wickets, Dexter retired prematurely, and not even slander could contain the West Indian supremacy.
For the press and ruling class cricket is an English' therefore dominated standards and their favoured players. Many socialists have taken over that to get che 'correct political response: 'crickel is bourgeois". reflecting the left's philistinism towards response is breathtakingly insular.
Allegiance Australan football may be good for the pools, but it is cricket which commands public Throughout the Indian sub-continent CHICKEE others. In the West Indies the tiniest vacant strip of ground is turned over to the national game. England and New Zealand are alone among the sport takes second place to another in the public interest.
It was not always so. There was never anything interently class' abouta game which began with shepherds patching a ball of wool at a wicket gate. As standardised it did come to represent dominant Victorian values, more so than the equally bourgeois Fostball Association and League.
In many parts of the especially the north. cricket had precisely equal status cach was played for half the year. Even the smallest community had its cricket league.
The dominancs, of the pubic Schooks and triversities.
ricker 1. England not THE hardly game and century. The ruling body is by their the Test Cricket International equivalent is the Internationul merly Imperial)
Apart from are staffed by ITCHUCHI sport, TAIS clique Club. a body equivulent to the Tory Party or Guards as a prop of the -British state!
These allegiance. uni Parers have outlived It by years Cricket used to be divided into the cnckel.
*ruling English the game became but no cricket in the 1920%.
steel apposition, foorball and TOC A0 explode their bombshell.
The his amateurs and changed" professional Fund County affected Bourd.
(forCricket scorecard, Both bodies • smail Gentlemen organised around the sparkling Marylebone Cricket more workaday purts the idea smallest shred of truth.
The fleeted the old Gentlemen division but pale. Although governed ruling class mere in progressively squeezed the life out of lecayed so did its input of cricketers Increasingly repelled, many workers dominance of cricket ended with the First World War. The West Indies was only admitted to Test Like all Dea Test-playing nations it took time lo though players were as good as any and only escaped due recognition by playing 1950 it was ready for Ram and Val to the offered for this dew hipremacy is the (Gentlemen") class autionul teains, distinction even such things where pluvery changed for the mutch or how their and Sobers. manses were written on the meR-Players Mith had it that the provided al butters, while the Players Filled the but also appalling the weekend league and dab cricket pluved locally and was heyond the Fi was praying rules to membere the sume Ghent excepted). practice not "natural sense of rhythm' theory, The Marxist CLR James deale simply with that sort of racism Analysing the genias of Learie Constantine, WTOEC: was not due to his marvellous West Indan eye marvellous West Indian wrists It wa due, if vou must have it, to his marvellous West Indian brains.
Technique Ramadhin was the same. confusion he created among English plavers was because of an innovation in technique — a new way of spinning ball + that no one understand. The question is why thar eligible for selection for Pucker.
Yet the standard was and is offen alternative high, with the participadion of West Indians such Constantine, Worrell In England the Gentle- Ner distinction provide a solution was abolished in 1963. 1s effects continue not just in the archaic administration in pluyers" wages (top players are meant to have munity. The private means, you see).
And the selection of the the Test England captuin still seems to depend more on the old locally-hased clubs school lie than on tactical leagues. sense (the present incum- competitions The battle with Kerry from thut hasi.
"technological' revolution took place in the Caribbean, Why, for example, the 164 square miles he provided the Three Ws, born within If months of cach and England's hundreds of professional cricketers could offer no equivalent. involvement in the game. That in turn becomes cleares Kennington Oval when the West Indians are playing. hlack people, The menial jobs or stand in a Brixton dole queue, can gain a symbolic revenge a he while team is haminarco James reports waterfront in Trinidad is the slogan *Garfielt Sobers 365°, the ahiount bf foreign compelition. the Austrulian cupitalist who set up an LETESSE LIBE tion, may have helped to shuke things up, but it will they does cricket's problems. His answeristo make the game more connercial, more professional. and more distanced from the com- Physique seeder destruction of reverse and count: turn to structure und a return t and Internationn CAN democratically argunise of Barbados other, when Britain?
The only explanation is mass cricket power it visits Thousands of shipped over to dr administrative that on the players in LORDS Chauvinism is rampant. When countries like East Africa. Si Lanka Papua Cunes arrived World Cup this month were The source ot much amusement to the cricker writers These countries are not up to Tes standard, but only bepause of the lac of top-rate opposition. Why should the most popular sport in Fiji be the object of racist 'grass skirt" jibes in the Daily Telegraph:
Why, for that matter, should the game be male-dominated? Physique is the reason most often piven, but in only one aspect, fast bowling, is pure physique of such importano Even there, there is a certain 1r00) for the modern method of bowling was invented by a woman.
For most English cricket fans the idea of international cricket against Fiji or the involvement or women or an equal basis seems bizarre and luughable. But is it any more bizarre and laughable than the visit of the first Australian aboriginal team to -Thete were racist aplenty, but these could not hold back the emergence of Australia as a world Many more than chi same methods could stop the tise o the West Indies nearly a century later Before these changes can take place the entire professional and structure of cricket will have to be smashed. Power will have to devolve to the leagues in the villages, the estates and the localities But the game itself is a ready-made strument for us to seize, The peg The Caribb social Challenge 1 Jime
Socialist Challenge
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