President Irfaan Ali stepped out of his crease this past week

President Irfaan Ali stepped out of his crease this past week to venture into the cricket arena. Addressing a Caribbean forum, organized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the President described the 1950 West Indies cricket team’s tour of England and its victory on that tour as a moonshot moment for the Caribbean.
The report on the President’s address noted that he “recalled one of the greatest feats in Caribbean history which he associates with the idea of moonshot, when the West Indies team defeated England for the first time at Lords on June 29, 1950. “
The outcome of that tour created some excitement in the Caribbean, as most tours by West Indian teams did during the early post-War era when radio was the main means of informing West Indians about the performance of the regional team. But to categorize the 3-1 series win by the West Indies as a moonshot moment is a case of exaggeration.
It was a historic series win – the first ever by the West Indian team in England. But it was far from being a moonshot moment.
A calypso was made out of the series victory – “those two pals of mine: Ramadin and Valentine.” But the team’s success was built around a team effort. All of the top batsmen dominated. Frank Worrell scored two centuries and had an astounding average of almost 90. All of the other frontline batsmen – Allen Rae, Everton Weekes, Jeff Stollmeyer and Clyde Walcott – had averages above 40. The bulk of the wickets were taken by the spin twins Ramadin and Valentine.
The team, however, never replicated that performance afterwards. In fact, it took a drubbing in the 1951-52 series in Australia where the spin twins failed to reproduce the form which had bamboozled the English batsmen. When England toured the West Indies in 1953-54, they drew the series after initially doing down in the first two tests. Australia also defeated the West Indies 3-0 in the 1954-55 Test series.
The 1950 series win was not the first time that the West Indies team had won tests against England. It was right here in Guyana in 1930 that the West Indies team won its first ever Test match against the Englishmen. This took place at the famous Bourda sward. West Indies won on the backs of double century from Clifford Roach, a century by George Headly and a match haul of nine wickets by Learie Constantine.
England had toured the West Indies in 1948 and were beaten 2-0 by the regional side. The West Indies team was expected therefore to do well in England. And as well as they did in 1950, the series victory cannot be classified as a moonshot moment.
It was equally surprising that President Ali suggested that the West Indies series victory inspired the South Africans. This is far from the truth. At the time, South Africa was already emerging as a cricketing force. It defeated England 4-1 in the series between the teams in the 1953-54 series.
If the President was looking for a cricketing moonshot moment for the West Indies he, perhaps, should have looked to the aftermath of the 1975-76 series between West Indies and Australia in Australia. Just recently, a Caribbean Cricket: The Vintage Collection quoted Sir Vivian Richards as saying,” Clive Lloyd did a magnificent job. You hear people say it was easy for Clive as captain because he had great players but that was bulls**t. We never started out as a great team. There were a lot of individuals who hadn’t done it and we had to have a leader. Clive was it. I looked up to him.”
He went on to talk about the drubbing which the West Indies took in the 1975-76 tour of Australia. He said, “We got beat 5-1 in Australia and Clive said to me over a drink ‘the only way we’re going to compete with these guys, Viv, is having four guys who can bowl just as fast as them or even faster.’ We never looked back once we had established that.”
After the debacle of the 1975-76 tour of Australia, the West Indies would assemble a
four-prong pace attack which under Lloyd’s and Richard’s leadership would dominate world cricket for the next 20 years.
The foundation of the great West Indies teams that developed under Lloyd and Richards, however, can be traced to the team that won the World Cup in 1975 in England. International limited-overs cricket was still in its formative years. The West Indies dazzling performance in that tournament can be considered the ultimate moonshot moment in West Indian cricket.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)