“Before the game I got an opportunity to speak to Brian Lara. I had to pinch myself.” – Temba Bavuma
Telford Vice / Centurion
BRIAN Lara was there. So was Jimmy Adams. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, too. Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, Tony de Zorzi, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Alzarri Joseph and Joshua da Silva were not yet born.
It was February 1995, and it was the last time West Indies won a Test series on the road against serious opposition. As in teams who were not Bangladesh, who have earned respect in that time, or Zimbabwe, who have squandered the little they had.
Before February 1995 the Windies had gone 16 other away rubbers — half of them drawn — without being beaten, or to February 1980. Fifteen years without failure have been followed by 28 years of mostly defeat: they have lost 33 and drawn only three away series. Again, that’s not against Bangladesh or Zimbabwe, who they have beaten in eight rubbers. They have also lost a series in Bangladesh.
Lara was in the Centurion dressing room on Thursday to see South Africa complete victory by 87 runs inside three days in the first Test. So was Adams. They are now West Indies’ performance mentor and director of cricket. What might they have thought of their successors’ display? Maybe that they knew the feeling. For all their individual heroics Lara and Adams were part of more defeats than victories. West Indies won 32 and lost 62 of the Tests Lara played. Adams celebrated 21 wins and endured 23 defeats.
Despite that the West Indians remain popular wherever they play. What they lack in substance they make up, to some extent, with style. They express their thoughts on the game more articulately than most, and they are rarely churlish. For instance, and in contrast to what has become a tiresome trend, Kemar Roach chose not to refer Kumar Dharmasena’s decision when he was trapped bang in front by Rabada to end the match. “I pretty much knew it was out, I thought let’s get out of here,” Roach said.
He was less matter-of-fact about reaching 260 Test wickets, which saw him usurp Joel Garner and take over fifth place on the Windies’ all-time list. “When I first came into the West Indies team he was the manager, and I spent a lot of time in his room communicating with him and learning some tricks of the trade,” Roach said. “He took me under his wing and he checks in with me once in a while. We had a good friendship, so to pass him is a great honour … sorry Mr Garner.”
What’s not to like about nice guys who seem content to serve as reliable victory fodder for home sides in various countries? Little wonder South Africa’s win was only moments old when a cry went up from sparsely populated stands: “We want more!”
But that doesn’t nearly capture the Windies’ appeal. They became standard bearers for innovation, verve and downright sexiness in a game mired in conformity, orthodoxy and the staleness of something your parents indulged in. Their fast bowlers arrived at the crease not sideways as the MCC decreed, but chest on. And prolonged their careers as a result. Their batters, particularly Viv Richards, understood the value of sheer force of personality.
They came to England in 1976 as rebels in search of a cause beyond playing what was demeaned as “calypso cricket”. Tony Greig’s racist verbal clumsiness, spat out in his still white South African accent, gave them that cause and set them on the path to become shining examples of black defiance and excellence.
Almost simultaneously, apartheid’s armed goons unleashed their full force on Soweto’s youth in deadly fashion. This confluence of causes inspired generations of oppressed black South Africans — who were prohibited by law from playing with whites and thus representing their own country — to support West Indies.
Before this match, Temba Bavuma spoke of doing exactly that growing up. How did he separate the badge of his boyhood from the team whose downfall he had been charged with plotting as South Africa’s captain? “Off the field that sentiment is quite big in me, but once we get on the field — like with all competitive sportsmen — it’s us versus them; we want to do what we can to win the game,” Bavuma said. “It’s a team I hold in high respect and high regard. Before the game I got an opportunity to speak to Brian Lara. I had to pinch myself. He came to me and said, ‘Big up, all respect to you for the position that you have.’ He wished me well.”
Bavuma was born in May 1990, Rabada in May 1995. Thus the defeat of apartheid at the ballot box in April 1994 could be construed as a dividing line between them. But the wonder in which the Windies were held easily leapt that five-year gap.
“I have huge admiration for the West Indies’ cricket culture,” Rabada said. “As a bowler, how can you ignore that famous attack and the likes of Viv Richards and Brian Lara, Gordon Greenidge … the list goes on and on. They dominated world cricket at a stage. The whole world knows about West Indies cricket. They’re a phenomenal side and they have a phenomenal cricketing culture. I’m friends with many of them. I admired the players who have come before and the current players. They would have played a role in my cricketing upbringing.”
The respect crosses the dressing room divide. Here, for instance, is Jermaine Blackwood on Lara: “He’s legend. It’s great for us, as players, to be around him. We grew up watching Brian play, and to have him in our dressing room is big plus for us.”
Or is what’s mutual the nostalgia, and the cautionary tale it tells? Lara is among the most spectacularly gifted players yet to grace a cricket ground, and Adams among the most gritty. But the team they played for ran on the fumes of the past, and their current incarnation is further removed still from the side that ruled world cricket under Clive Lloyd and Richards.
Maybe the affinity between the teams owes something to South Africa looking back in unspoken awe at what Graeme Smith’s side accomplished in August 2012 when they captured the Test mace. And in something like fear at what they might become if they continue to follow the West Indian trajectory. But, for more than two days, the South Africans could put those concerns aside.
They resumed on Thursday with a lead of 179, but with only six wickets standing on a pitch that smiled on seam bowling throughout. Aiden Markram’s 47 was their only score of consequence and Roach took 5/47 as they were dismissed an over before lunch, setting West Indies a target of 247.
The visitors had the time to get there but not the batting, especially with a focused Rabada mowing through the order with sleek precision to take 6/50. Blackwood’s 79 shimmered with the kind of attitude that was required, but there was little else where that came from and the match was decided an hour after tea.
West Indies, then, will not be able to undo on this tour what the past 28 years have done to their reputation as a Test team. The second match of the series, at the Wanderers, starts on Wednesday. Then it’s onto the white-ball stuff. Lara and Adams will be there. And with them the past and present, and the future of those not yet born.
Cricbuzz
Bulletproof Truth 