An elegant player, Samuels stormed back into the selectors' favour after amassing 830 runs in the Regional FirstClass Championship, the most by any player. Samuels also had an impressive showing in the regional T20 Championships where he finished as the top run-getter. Despite receiving an earlier call-up to the West Indies for the recently concluded ICC Cricket World Cup, the batsman declined the invitation, declaring himself not yet ready to return to international cricket.
"We're all big men, it won't affect our performance. We have to get on with it. It's not a case of what I've said upsetting the team," [Chris Gayle] said. "I am definitely not giving up the captaincy after this Test match. I think I still have a big part to play in West Indies cricket," Gayle said. "It takes a toll on your body and your mental strength. It can drain you a bit," said Gayle, whom the Guardian quoted on Tuesday as saying he preferred Twenty20 cricket to Test cricket.
Many have blamed the Windies' decline on the MTV generation, who are more interested in American basketball than cricket. And cricketers, although still idolised in the Caribbean, would never earn the amounts of Michael Jordan or Shaquille O'Neal. In this sense, James placed cricket on the same level as Western literature. "We live in one world," he wrote in a 1969 essay, "and we have to find out what is taking place in the world. And I, a man of the Caribbean, have found that it is in the study of Western literature, Western philosophy and Western history that I have found out the things that I have found out, even about the underdeveloped countries." Throughout his life James viewed cricket as a means of helping unite a disparate set of islands, of establishing a Caribbean as opposed to an island mentality. He had little difficulty in understanding why Norman Tebbit should make cricket the basis of his loyalty test - or why most black people would fail it.
British-African-Caribbean cricket players are well represented in the English game but participation appears mediated by ethnic group membership. This contemporary pattern can only be understood when contextualized within the historical development of cricket in the Caribbean and, in particular, the struggles between whites and blacks and between the white elites.
I don't believe this is because cricket is an inferior game. But, in the eyes of the punters, football rules. This is true, not only in Britain but also in the Caribbean. I was therefore surprised that Channel 4 felt it could cash in on the enthusiasm shown for the Reggae Boyz by putting on a concert at Lords. West Indies tours to Britain in the '60s, '70s and '80s served a much wider purpose that went beyond hearing leather on willow. For those of us oppressed in the context of slavery and colonialism, the black body was something to be despised. It was particularly important for the Windrush generation and during the '50s and '60s, when the factory and the street were open season for racists.
