Sir Trevor McDonald on the importance of cricket to the West Indies
Our columnist on the day the West Indies beat England at cricket - and how it changed Trinidad.
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Our columnist on the day the West Indies beat England at cricket - and how it changed Trinidad.
Cricket is a Trinidadian obsession; my younger brother and I played sprawling, never-ending games on dusty Tarmac with tree branches and tennis balls dipped in water.
I wanted to listen to the game so badly that my father eventually bought a battered old radio, Few West Indians ever entertained the extravagant thought of travelling to England to watch their team play. We depended on radio commentaries from the BBC World Service.
That's how news about the first ever victory over England in the four match Test series in 1950 spread across the Caribbean, prompting spontaneous outbursts of joy.
There are West Indians today who could still quote precisely from the commentaries. As the West Indian batsmen pummelled the English bowlers, one commentator remarked, "This is the day England knew would come but prayed would never come. This is not cricket, it's civilised murder."
The significance of that first ever West Indian victory at Lord's on 29 June went far beyond a memorable, if exaggerated, metaphor.
The famous Trinidadian writer CLR James had posed the question, "What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?" James was indicating that in the West Indies, cricket has always been more than just a game.
Very soon after the 1950 victory, talk began to spread that perhaps the West Indians should now have a black captain
He wrote of one player, who was in every way described as the most reprehensible social outcast: "Matthew Bondsman could bat."
Whenever he was at the crease, everything about his character was forgotten, forgiven even. People flocked to see him play, some surreptitiously parting their curtains to watch him execute his cover drives.
But that was almost insignificant to what changed politically after the West Indies beat England in the summer of 1950, when I was 10.
Dr Eric Willlams, who would become Trinidad's first Prime Minister, began saying, "If we could beat the mother country at cricket, we can govern ourselves."
Even in 1950, West Indian cricket captains were white. Very soon after the 1950 victory, talk began to spread that perhaps the West Indians should now have a black captain.
Fired by furious discussions about political self-determination, the islands began conference visits to London to discuss how full independence might be achieved. Now a journalist, I was assigned by Radio Trinidad to report on Trinidad's independence conference in London in 1962.
It was held behind closed doors and reporting what happened was no easy task. But cricket came to my rescue. One member of the delegation was one of the most famous cricketers the islands had ever known, Learie Constantine, who went on to become a lawyer and politician.
Each day I persuaded him to allow me to go to his hotel and talk about what had happened at the conference. He was very discreet. After we discussed an Indian cricket tour in England happening that year I would probe as diplomatically as I could about conference matters.
Constantine eventually gave away some of the secrets. In that way he saved my bacon. At a reception marking the end of the conference, Eric Williams asked me what I had been sending back to Trinidad, to ensure I did not betray any confidences I answered by saying, "Not very much."
He instantly replied, "That's not what I hear. My brother tells me everyone in Trinidad is tuned into your reports."
At the end of the conference, it was agreed that Trinidad should become independent.
I was pleased that, in the end, cricket and a famous cricketer - had played a part in this momentous piece of history.
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