From The University of the West Indies

The CLR James Cricket Research Centre, Cave Hill, Barbados. Friday, September 6, 2019—Two photographs in as many days tell the story of the future of West Indies cricket. The first captures Floyd Reifer, West Indies interim cricket coach, in conversation with Jamaican Dr Glen Mills, the world’s best ever sprint coach/educator. The second is of Richard Pybus, terminated West Indies coach, commenting on the West Indies Test defeat against India at Sabina Park.

“These images”, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Director of the CLR James Cricket Research Centre at The University of the West Indies (The UWI) says, “once again validate the theory that West Indian society finds itself at a cross road, and cricket continues to serve as the mirror in which it views itself”.

A statement from Sir Hilary expands further:

In the post-defeat narrative Pybus treats us to what he describes as his ‘Philosophy of West Indies Cricket progress’. This we shall call the “PP” or Pybus Philosophy. On examining the assumptions and prescriptions of the PP, there is compelling proof of it as a ‘call me back’ self-serving objective, mixed in with inaccurate explanations for our performance results. Also, it promotes a sleight of hand attempt to cover up the most damaging vandalism ever imposed on West Indies cricket—his role in the abolition of the West Indies High Performance Centre.

Stepping back and across in order to get behind the moving ball, we encountered evidence that is well known. Dr Rudy Webster, Windies cricket visionary, pioneered the early development of the West Indies Cricket Academy at the beginning of the globalization phase of cricket. He did so at the St George’s University in Grenada.

In the aftermath of this effective initiative, The UWI—in conjunction with Sagicor Financial Corporation and the West Indies Cricket Board under President Dr Julian Hunte, building on the Webster legacy—established the High Performance Centre (HPC) at The UWI’s 3Ws Oval, in Cave Hill, Barbados.

The HPC produced the young talent that has found its way into Windies international cricket. Then entered Richard Pybus. In short time he unleashed his slash-and-burn philosophy that resulted in its closure. His hostility to the HPC, The UWI that hosted it, and cricket educators in the region, became toxic.

PP came out of the Mark Nicholas anti-West Indies school in England. Nicholas, the primary philosopher stated explicitly that West Indians have no intellectual talent or capacity to pull themselves up from the performance valley into which they have fallen. According to Nicholas, the peak of their success during the 20-year Clive Lloyd-Viv Richards regimes was a ‘fluke’, rather than rooted in resolve and reasoning. It was, he said, an act of nature and, like “Halley’s comet”, ‘a thing of beauty’ when it lasted that will never be seen by us again.

The PP, like Nicholas’ Fluke theory, is an expression of English cricket racism in sport. Its first expression was the shutdown of the HPC because it was not needed and therefore irrelevant. In his thinking it was top heavy in the mental dimension having produced top class players like Jason Holder, Carlos Brathwaite, Shai Hope, and Shannon Gabriel. In the PP, these players do not have to think for themselves; all they need to do is follow him mindlessly and they will be fine. This was the thinking that saw to his rejection in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In giving a thumbs down to the HPC at its prime, young West Indies players were fingered and thrown to the wolves. They became the only international cricket team without an academy; the only competitive cricket nation without a training and learning centre; the only team of brilliant talent without a place to hone mental and technical skills. This act of visionless vandalism struck at the very heart of West Indian revival and resilience.

In the PP, the weakening of young players would have no negative performance impact because they were expected to leave the mental aspect to him. He was the mind, the thinker, the new authority. England arrived in the West Indies with a weakened side, showing contempt for the Windies, because they were focused on winning the World Cup.

It was the performance of former HPC players that got the better of them, not a Pybus vision. But it was Pybus who rolled out the strategy that the Windies World Cup squad could be assembled in England two weeks prior to the start and could be competitive.

Other teams, primarily his England, were in World Cup building sessions for months. As a result of his planning and thinking, Windies went in at 50% tournament ready, at best. This was obvious to the critical cricket eye that saw a T20 rather than an ODI outfit. Discussions of the poor results that followed should ideally have focussed on a probe into the Pybus preparation plan rather than with players and coaches. It will take a while for the West Indies to overcome the damage caused by the PP since the closure of the HPC.

We should be aware too of the power of external events that rock internal development. There are rarely coincidences. This is the second time since the Lloyd-Richards regimes that Windies have been so undermined. South African cricket leaders, in order to undermine Windies excellence, strategically pulled out our replacement ‘A’ players as rebels in the 1980s and early 1990s. This depleted the bench. By the mid-1990s Windies stars were replaced by the ‘B’ bench. We fell steeply.

Furthermore, the PP is really an expression of the new-colonial mind at work. The colonizer, after conceding finally to the Independence demands of natives, smirks at each national failure, and, as if guided by the PP, says “Ok, you wanted change, Independence, and now you have it; you can’t manage your own affairs; you are not ready to compete on your own in the global space; now stop the pretence to independence and agree to my return”.

This is the racial ideology that drips from the core of the PP. It is followed by the social theory that West Indian failures are rooted in their cultural inability—the Nicholas “brainless West Indians” discourse. Conversely, West Indian success from Sir Frank Worrell, though Sir Gary Sobers, and on to Sir Viv Richards, 50 years of indigenous-inspired and led excellence, is described by Mark Nicholas as a fluke, never to be seen again.

The audacity of Nicholas finds expression in the outrage of the PP. They are inherently anti-West Indian; PP, a part of the culture war unleashed against the West Indians. Like all actions and thought that deny the mental ability of natives, it is grounded in a support crew of local collaborators. But it is the role of local collaborators that makes the offense even more heinous.

The ‘gotcha game’ being played by Pybus and his local collaborators is not only infantile, it is very dangerous. It goes beyond the boundary of professional decency, and connects to all the challenges that are currently facing West Indian people today. After the progress came the recession. Did we fail or were we defeated? The subtlety is not without substance.

To promote a philosophy of self-reliance in search of a domestic solution, based on partnerships with true global friends, attracts hostility in some quarters. The spin experts have a field day turning out the narrative. But to submit to postcolonial subjugation—bring back the imperial mind to lead and determine domestic affairs—is to face the pace of academics and other civil society strategists.

In the presence of growing doubt and confidence, the collaborators—in search of benefit—would hand back the nation to the imperialists. Professional pirates of old believe that we West Indians are once again ripe for the pickings. But this is not so. The resistance is rising. It is inspired by the pantheon of Caribbean heroes from Nanny of the Maroons and Sam Sharpe, from Kofi and Toussaint to Bussa to Bogle, and onward to Marcus Garvey.

While we prepare to push back the PP that West Indians have no performance future without the imperial mind, and cannot build upon the excellence of prior indigenous success, we recognize that sincere foreign friends and global partners have always been a part of our emergence to excellence.

There is no rejection of the international in monopoly pursuit of the national. That has never been the West Indian way. At the height of our success, for example, was Dennis Waight, the Aussie fitness and mental toughness mentor. Pybus, sadly, is not within this international development tradition; he is imported from an imperial core seeking to regain a foothold having disposed of the local cricket school set up to free the minds of the youth.

Thinking and timing and not griping and groaning are everything in sport. This is why Floyd Reifer’s reaching out to Dr Mills in Jamaica for guidance on how to train players in time management during an innings is so significant. Mills is the greatest time manager of all times. Less than 10 seconds in which to play is not magic; it is intellectual magnificence. This is what the HPC was set up to do. Manage moments in order to win.

The photo of Reifer and Mills, therefore, signals the onset of an enlightenment, a giant step into the future. The Pybus picture, on the other hand, that seeks to sell the ‘I told you so tale’ constitutes, in the final instance, a loud call from a Caribbean cemetery.

Notes

Photo caption: Dr Glen Mills with Mr Floyd Reifer.

About The UWI

For more than 70 years The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has provided service and leadership to the Caribbean region and wider world. The UWI evolved from a university college of London in Jamaica with 33 medical students in 1948 to an internationally respected, regional university with near 50,000 students across five campuses: Cave Hill in Barbados; Mona in Jamaica, Five Islands in Antigua and Barbuda, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago; and an Open Campus with over 42 locations serving 17 Caribbean territories.

The world’s most reputable ranking agency, Times Higher Education, has ranked The UWI among the top 600 universities in the world for 2019, and the 40 best universities in Latin America and the Caribbean for 2018 and 2019. The UWI is the only Caribbean-based University to make these prestigious lists and is one of only two regional universities in the world (the other being the University of South Pacific).

As part of its robust globalization agenda, The UWI has established partnering centres with universities in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa including the State University of New York (SUNY)-UWI Center for Leadership and Sustainable Development; the Canada-Caribbean Studies Institute with Brock University; the Strategic Alliance for Hemispheric Development with Universidad de los Andes (UNIANDES); The UWI-China Institute of Information Technology, the University of Lagos (UNILAG)-UWI Institute of African and Diaspora Studies and the Institute for Global African Affairs with the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

The regional university offers more than 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate, and postgraduate degree options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science & Technology, Social Sciences and Sport. As the region’s premier research academy, The UWI’s foremost objective is driving sustainable economic growth and development. Visit www.uwi.edu.

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)