England’s 2015 West Indies tour will miss some Caribbean spirit

The itinerary represents something of a climbdown by the West Indies Cricket Board, whose original schedule, mindful of the influx of supporters in their thousands who follow England to the region, caused apoplexy among those involved in the tourist industry both there and in this country. Guyana had been pencilled in, so too Jamaica, and finally Grenada. In terms of anticipated income to the region that an England tour brings – well north of US$50m, not to mention the logistics, it was madness. A compromise was always on the cards and now there is a nice little Caribbean Test match triangle.

All this is in contrast to how it once was, back in the days where West Indies were the supreme cricket machine. Tours then, much less concentrated than they are now, seemed to conform to a template. First came some seductive island warm-up matches, what we would term beach cricket: St Kitts, St Lucia, Grenada, that sort of thing, and all very nice. For the most part, unless they happened upon the fearsome Antiguan trio of Vaughn “Hungry” Walsh, Randy Challenger, and John “The Dentist” Maynard, they would find numerous overs of spin confronting them, hardly the preparation they required for facing Curtly, Courtney, Bish and Kenny Benjamin over the course of the next five matches.

Things have changed now, though. Had England gone to Guyana it would have been to Providence, the characterless stadium built miles out of Georgetown for the 2007 World Cup. Sabina Park, where England were roundly mugged by Jerome Taylor last time, has a huge new stand at one end, and Grenada had to be redeveloped following the devastation caused by Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
Most significant will be the return to Antigua and the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, another arena purpose-built, with the aid of Chinese money, for the World Cup. England’s last visit there for a Test in 2009, the second staged on the ground, was a disaster . The outfield was patently unfit for purpose, obvious in the lead-up into the match, but the hamstrung ICC match referee, Alan Hurst, allowed the match to start, under pressure no doubt. It lasted 10 deliveries, by which time both West Indies opening bowlers, Taylor and Fidel Edwards, had almost sunk to their knees in the sand.