I have to confess. I’ve always liked them. Richards, Lloyd, Haynes, Greenidge were so much more interesting than the Australians and English batsmen of the time. And I’m not even counting their assembly line of fast bowlers. Roberts, Holding, Garner, Croft, Daniels, Davis and many many more.
They even looked cool wearing pink, the colour assigned to the West Indian team in the Packer series, a decade before even Boy George had the courage to carry it off. It’s not surprising that for Ravi Shastri and many Indian cricketers of his generation, reggae was the choice of music on their Walkmans.
The swagger remains
Twenty years later, the performances are not quite as consistent, but the swagger remains. Chris Gayle probably exemplifies that more than any contemporary West Indian cricketer. His first year in the IPL was a non-starter – he reached with a groin strain that effectively ruled him out for the season.
He decided to spend that time gainfully by travelling to Mumbai on a shoe buying expedition. He returned a few days later with a wide grin and the most bewildering variety of shoes and jutties possible. Stuff that even Jeetendra would have rejected out of hand. And he wore them as well.
Gayle force
The next year it was serious cricket. On his first practice, every one got a taste of what Gayle could do to a cricket ball. He hammered a ball back that was hit so hard that the net bowler could not move – it missed his head by a hair’s breadth. There was stunned silence for a few minutes after and all the net bowlers were far more circumspect in their follow through.
For the five years since then, Gayle has been Bradmanesque in the IPL. And while the Royal Challengers have not always got the results, he has given them huge totals and defined a cool and hip attitude that has made them crowd pleasers around the IPL circuit.
Today Gayle is just one of a band of West Indians who are regarded as explosive game changers in the shorter formats of the game. This West Indian World Cup squad looks menacing at times with the likes of Gayle, Darren Sammy, Andre Russell and Marlon Samuels. Think of the damage they could have done with Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine around as well.
A different rhythm
It’s not always easy for Australian or Indian staff to work with the West Indians. They do march to a different beat. For starters, you will rarely see a West Indian in a gym. Those bodies seem to be so naturally perfect that they don’t need the extra effort that the rest do.
Andre Russell, another product of the Jamaica system, let me in on a little secret. Among their top cricketers, it’s cool not to gym too much. But back in their rooms, a lot of them keep doing free hand exercises all the time. “After all mon,” he said, pointing to his perfectly toned body, “you can’t order this on Amazon!”
The other thing that takes getting used to is the post match demeanour of most of the Windies cricketers. They will have a blast – win or lose. And it’s not the easiest thing to get used to your star player sporting a wide smile and grooving on the floor the night after a bad defeat.
But if anything, that’s what keeps them going, not much point having them mope in a corner after. And I did find it a little rich when I heard Indians from the land of the Gita complain about them not being bothered about results.
The beat
But win or lose, you’ll always find them with their music and their sense of humour intact. Headphones around the room, blasting everything from reggae and rap to hip-hop and Trinidadian Soca (reggae meets Bihar meets steel band music).
The six-foot-eight fast bowler Joel Garner was once famously asked by an Australian fan whether he was proportional all over, and replied that if he had been proportional, he would be eight feet six inches tall. Thirty years later, in our dressing room, one of our Australian players walked up to Gayle wearing just a towel, opened it in front of him and asked, ‘Jealous, Chris?’
Gayle gave it a long hard look, pretended to need a magnifying glass and drawled, ‘It must be winter mon!’ It’s never winter though for those sunshine boys from the Caribbean.
Joy Bhattacharya is a former executive producer at ESPN Star Sports.
They even looked cool wearing pink, the colour assigned to the West Indian team in the Packer series, a decade before even Boy George had the courage to carry it off. It’s not surprising that for Ravi Shastri and many Indian cricketers of his generation, reggae was the choice of music on their Walkmans.
The swagger remains
Twenty years later, the performances are not quite as consistent, but the swagger remains. Chris Gayle probably exemplifies that more than any contemporary West Indian cricketer. His first year in the IPL was a non-starter – he reached with a groin strain that effectively ruled him out for the season.
He decided to spend that time gainfully by travelling to Mumbai on a shoe buying expedition. He returned a few days later with a wide grin and the most bewildering variety of shoes and jutties possible. Stuff that even Jeetendra would have rejected out of hand. And he wore them as well.
Gayle force
The next year it was serious cricket. On his first practice, every one got a taste of what Gayle could do to a cricket ball. He hammered a ball back that was hit so hard that the net bowler could not move – it missed his head by a hair’s breadth. There was stunned silence for a few minutes after and all the net bowlers were far more circumspect in their follow through.
For the five years since then, Gayle has been Bradmanesque in the IPL. And while the Royal Challengers have not always got the results, he has given them huge totals and defined a cool and hip attitude that has made them crowd pleasers around the IPL circuit.
Today Gayle is just one of a band of West Indians who are regarded as explosive game changers in the shorter formats of the game. This West Indian World Cup squad looks menacing at times with the likes of Gayle, Darren Sammy, Andre Russell and Marlon Samuels. Think of the damage they could have done with Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine around as well.
A different rhythm
It’s not always easy for Australian or Indian staff to work with the West Indians. They do march to a different beat. For starters, you will rarely see a West Indian in a gym. Those bodies seem to be so naturally perfect that they don’t need the extra effort that the rest do.
Andre Russell, another product of the Jamaica system, let me in on a little secret. Among their top cricketers, it’s cool not to gym too much. But back in their rooms, a lot of them keep doing free hand exercises all the time. “After all mon,” he said, pointing to his perfectly toned body, “you can’t order this on Amazon!”
The other thing that takes getting used to is the post match demeanour of most of the Windies cricketers. They will have a blast – win or lose. And it’s not the easiest thing to get used to your star player sporting a wide smile and grooving on the floor the night after a bad defeat.
But if anything, that’s what keeps them going, not much point having them mope in a corner after. And I did find it a little rich when I heard Indians from the land of the Gita complain about them not being bothered about results.
The beat
But win or lose, you’ll always find them with their music and their sense of humour intact. Headphones around the room, blasting everything from reggae and rap to hip-hop and Trinidadian Soca (reggae meets Bihar meets steel band music).
The six-foot-eight fast bowler Joel Garner was once famously asked by an Australian fan whether he was proportional all over, and replied that if he had been proportional, he would be eight feet six inches tall. Thirty years later, in our dressing room, one of our Australian players walked up to Gayle wearing just a towel, opened it in front of him and asked, ‘Jealous, Chris?’
Gayle gave it a long hard look, pretended to need a magnifying glass and drawled, ‘It must be winter mon!’ It’s never winter though for those sunshine boys from the Caribbean.
Joy Bhattacharya is a former executive producer at ESPN Star Sports.
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