BY Renegade
(CRICKETWINDIES)The windies looked like they didn't want to be there in the first Test against India in Antigua, and not just because of the empty stands. Their cricket was limp and their body language even worse. The team lacked even a semblance of togetherness.
There is no such political union as the West Indies. Its shareholders - Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago and the Windward Islands - are all fully independent mini-nations with their own governments, currencies, flags and anthems. It is amazing they have held together for over 100 years, since a 1900 tour of England. That bond has become increasingly delicate.
To quote Daren Ganga, the Trinidad and Tobago captain, who played 48 Tests for West Indies between 1998 and 2008, made [the] point. "If you speak to any West Indies player, you will hear them talking about this special affiliation to their country," he said. "When you play for the country that you were born in and brought up in and you sing your national anthem, it brings a different individual spirit to you."
Citizens of the collective small nations and territories huddled under the cricket organization known as the West Indies increasingly are no longer connected. Fazeer Mohammed maintains that cricket is still a unifying force in the west indies. They still talk emotionally about the game in homes and streets But much too frequently, they talk in jeering tones about the woeful performances of the windies team and they're tired of it.