Journey to rediscover themselves has begun

a sign of weakness. To do so would further heighten and expose administrative embarrassment. So the tour of the island took place minus Brian Lara, Correy Collymore, Chris Gayle and Ramnarine Sarwan, among others.

No one, of course suggested that the tour should be shelved until the pay packet and contract issues had been solved. Critics suggested that West Indies would be blown away.

There is a small flaw in that argument; it is called character and shaking a fist in the face of those who doubted. In this case, the West Indies players put the fractures of what was going on at home to one side and got on with the job of what they know best and this is playing a Test to the best if their ability.

There are also times when starting from the beginning is a better, cure-all option, than mollycoddling players reluctant to turn out in the maroon cap as they are not being paid their worth. Well, as Curtly Ambrose recently suggested, the players have been losing so badly, perhaps they should pay the fans to come and watch.

Some of this may be tongue in cheek repartee, but it does carry a message. It is one of responsibility. There is a public in the West Indies who have looked on with some angst at the going on between the board and the players association. A former player such as Ambrose is one. There are others, like former captain Richie Richardson, who have stronger views.

‘As professionals they need to think about the game as a regional identity and remember from where they have come,’ said the former captain. ‘This may sound harsh, but West Indies will only become a better side with Lara as a player and not as captain.’

This underlines what is now taking place in Sri Lanka. Bennett King, the team’s coach, who has found himself pulled into the role of a mentor, pointed out how the current squad on tour was finding that level of understanding. It is a modern philosophy that binds present West Indies thinking as well as the diverse personality among the players.

Or, as was suggested by Richardson and now King, cricket in the West Indies is identified as a unifying force. Kids grow up loving it; they are passionate about it. They all want to play for the West Indies as it has meaning.

Last Wednesday, two 19-year-olds and an ageing player, became debutants and two of them showed what drives genuine West Indies spirit. In this case, starting from scratch and rebuilding under a new captain and coach and team management explains a lot that is good in the system.

You hear the arguments of how top players are lured in other directions: notably baseball and basketball. But as they will tell you, there is no baseball in the British Caribbean.

Cammie Smith, a former Bajan and West Indies batsman and ICC match referee said in September 2000 that it was an excuse for some administrators in the West Indies designed to pull a red herring trick for the unsuspecting.

What we have seen in this first Test of the two-match series is how the West Indies have started a journey to rediscover themselves and are doing it with a team that has a lot of self-belief. It won’t happen overnight, may be not even on this tour, but the will to resurrect the image of Caribbean glory is in their mind.

As Jamaican Jermain Lawson has shown, the pace bowling legacy handed down by such as Ambrose, Holding, Marshall and Roberts, has found other practitioners. The rest will follow.