Roberto von Archimboldi on Nostr: With the death of Sir Garfield Sobers, I have reflecting on the different responses ...

With the death of Sir Garfield Sobers, I have reflecting on the different responses to the great West Indian teams of the 60s, 70s and 80s. The team of Sobers, Walcott, Weekes, Worrell, Hall, Kanhai must have been a truly brilliant team. It did not receive the hatred (and posthumous adulation) of Clive Lloyds and Viv Richard's teams.

Some of that will be white horror at the sustained brilliance of black teams and some the humiliation of having to face the relentless pace of the later teams. Hall, Griffith and Sobers were no slouches, but Garner, Holding, Roberts, Marshall... that is another level.

I suspect that at heart though it is because of changing attitudes to independence. The earlier teams, I think, understood themselves to be struggling for the sort of independence that Australia, New Zealand and South Africa enjoyed. Perhaps more than dominion status, but very much as part of a block of countries that shared a history and political and sporting tradition. The British, at that point, were supportive of that vision.

By Clive Lloyd's day, Caribbean independence is part of a broader third world movement for liberation. Britain is opposed to that. It knows that it can no longer hold on to its empire and will not have black countries in its new atlanticist club. Being humiliated repeatedly by the West Indies cannot be allowed to stand. The teams of the 70s and 80s respond with Viv's arrogant swagger. The 50s and 60s see Sobers' casual genius.

Tragically structural adjustment changes the rules of the game and the world is deprived of Caribbean genius in test cricket and in so many other areas.

#Cricket, #SirGarfieldSobers, #RIP, #CliveLloyd, #VivianRichards, #WIndies, #Empire