West Indies Cricket Legend

West Indies Cricket Fans Exceptional Caribbean Exceptional Caribbean

westindiest20worldcupsquad Exceptional Caribbean Exceptional Caribbean

By Rohan Kallicharran

I was seven when I heard the news, and it absolutely devastated me. We were not going to have Christmas in Australia after all, to see dad, because he would not be there. Had he broken his finger again, the one broken earlier in the year, which made him miss the 1980-81 series against England?. Yet, on the other hand, he had played today against Lancashire, so he could not have broken it.

Alvin Kallicharran has never written an autobiography. Now aged 62, and some two decades on from his retirement, I very much doubt that he will. This is a shame in many regards, for I suspect that it would have made good reading; over these next few years, there are many things that I would like to discuss with him.

I think it was Christopher Martin-Jenkins who once said that it was bizarre that someone as jovial as Kalli had been caught up in so much controversy. He was right on both counts; dad was indeed a very jovial, likeable man, but he had found himself at the centre of a few controversial moments:

Being run out in bizarre circumstances by Tony Greig in Port-of-Spain in 1974, only to be reinstated to prevent a possible riot (it was mentioned 'just a few' times after the Ian Bell incident at Trent Bridge).

· Agreeing to join Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket, then withdrawing, and captaining a sub-strength West Indies side during this period.

· Accepting an invitation to tour South Africa in 1981-82, and then facing a life-time ban from again representing the West Indies.

I was seven years of age then, and did not understand the intricacies of politics– either in or outside a sporting field.

What I did know and didn't quite like was that we were no longer part of the West Indies 'family' –that very family amongst whom I had grown up. What I failed to notice was that come September, as usual, the old man would fly out of the country to return in March, leaving me in tears at Heathrow's Terminal 3—an annual ritual.

What I did not comprehend was the explanation that it would take 13 hours to reach Johannesburg mainly because we had to fly around the coast of Africa and over the Atlantic Ocean. After all, South African Airways were prevented from entering the airspace of most African nations.

I didn't understand why I was suddenly banned from answering the telephone at home, something that I had always done, and did not understand why there were men with cameras everywhere we looked. After all, why were newspaper men going to be near our house, not to mention extra security after death threats?. I did not appreciate the unimaginable turbulence and heartache that my father went through by initially turning down, and then ultimately accepting, a contract to spend the 1981-82 winter playing cricket for Transvaal in South Africa.

Of course, I didn't know how let down he felt when Clive Lloyd lacked even the decency to tell him to his face that he wouldn't be in the touring party to Australia this winter.

After all, he had every opportunity to do so that day mentioned above when Lancashire visited Edgbaston in August 1981. It was a long enough innings anyway, 51, to demonstrate to Lloyd that he was in form notwithstanding his absence from the Warwickshire side for much of the season—surely he had a moment each over to note he was in that side?

After 66 Test matches and nearly 4,500 runs, effectively serving West Indian cricket with the additional burden of captaincy through the Packer era, Kallicharran was being cast aside at 32. It left a feeling of distaste in most mouths, especially within the Indo-Caribbean (Asian) communities of Guyana and Trinidad.

Warwickshire would not even allow Kallicharran time off to attend his father's funeral

There were many opinions banded around, mainly that the side that went to Packer had bonded as a unit, and that Kalli had become separate from that very unit.

I always found that unlikely, given that many of those same players continued to spend great amounts of time at our house during the English domestic season. It is ironic that Kallicharran would have gone to Packer, but for the quite abhorrent behaviour of those in charge at Warwickshire County Cricket Club at the time, who said that they would withdraw his employment, and in doing so any support for his ongoing application for British Citizenship. I, at four years old, was the only British subject in the family through birth. Remarkably, this is the same Warwickshire County Cricket Club that, during the 1988 season, wouldn't even release my father to attend his father's funeral in Guyana. He was injured at the time.

The other, less likeable, but equally plausible opinion, was that senior figures within West Indian cricket wanted a side made up solely of black West Indian cricketers. It should be noted that Faoud Bacchus remained in the 1981-82 side that toured Australia, but he would be dropped after that tour, and amongst those that went to South Africa the following winter.

To be fair to the authorities, it must be noted that Bacchus was dispensed with an average of 26 over 19 Test Matches, a record perhaps only a little more digestible than omitting Kallicharran, recognised still at that point amongst the best in the world. Of further interest is the fact that no other player of Indian origin would represent the West Indies until Shivnarine Chanderpaul in 1994.

I have always defended the West Indian selectors and powers that be against that accusation.

So strong were the West Indies during that period that Kallicharran was, in my opinion, the only of the Indo-Caribbean players who could stake any claim to a place in that side. All said and done, in my opinion, the West Indies team of that time is the greatest of all time, and only the very best were ever going to break into it.

One also has to consider the socio-political influences of the time, especially in Guyana, with its large Indo-Caribbean population.

They felt victimised by the government-dictatorship, as some saw it of, Linden Forbes Burnham. So when they suddenly had no Indians in the Test side, question and opinion were inevitable, and many believed there to be an agenda around race. However, to drop Alvin Kallicharran was seen as an insult to the Indian community, and I know for a fact that many found it hard to support the West Indies with no players of their own on show.

What did interest me, however, more recently, after the release of the new film, Fire In Babylon, was that it apparently made no mention of Kallicharran or Kanhai before him.

It focused purely on the politically driven force of a black West Indian team, and the shame of those that went to South Africa. It is a film that succeeded in producing an account of the brilliance of West Indian cricket during that period, but it is obsessed with African pride. I'd say that just a simple celebration of 'West Indian pride' would have been more fitting.

Instead, I read that other masterpiece in the Jamaica Gleaner that spoke of another brilliant West Indian batsman, Lawrence Rowe, who would captain the Rebel Tourists in South Africa in 1982-83 and 1983-84. To be frank, it is a low point in itself when an editorial in a newspaper that at one point could boast the enormous talents of Tony Becca, a doyen among cricket scribes in the Caribbean, should sink to such balances of imbalance.

The one area that everyone has spoken about, though, is a stand at Sabina Park named after him during the recent Test match against India. How convenient and how strange, perhaps, that he should choose this week, to apologise for going to South Africa! Why now after close to 30 years? It reeks of coercion. The bottom line is that Rowe had nothing to apologise for, neither did Kallicharran or any of the others who embarked upon that tour.

As far back as 1983, the West Indian Cricket Board had asked Kallicharran to express an apology saying he could then be selected for the side and the life ban lifted.

The fact was that Kallicharran was in sublime form for that three-year period, and consistently made his point to the West Indian cricketing fraternity, destroying the likes of Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner in the domestic game, scoring more runs in that period even than the likes of Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards. As he did then, he refused. I would hope he would refuse now.

I take great umbrage with the statement that these men simply ‘sold out to the rand’ and that they just ‘went for money’.

Do not get me wrong, I am not naive, and for each and every one of these players, money was a key aspect. But it wasn't just Kallicharran who was mistreated by West Indian cricket, and if we consider the constant wrangling of players with the WICB, nothing seems to have changed to this day. The simple fact is that they had to make a living, and the West Indies was not about to provide it.

Were they all aware of quite how bad apartheid was?

No, I don't think so. Actually, nobody could. Unless they lived it. Truly, apartheid was nearly the ultimate hideous thing—one of the worst civil liberties abuses ever committed. But that doesn't mean that just because they were there, they were condoning it. Did they think they could make a difference? Not necessarily. To be honest, I think financial survival and stability was probably the motivating factor. Yet these same men went on to become heroes in the townships and, more surprisingly, the darlings of a white South African audience.

Let us be clear about one thing at this stage, this was NOT comparable to the English or Australian rebel tours; this was something different altogether.

To the anti-apartheid campaigners it was greater, a more grievous betrayal by a group of blacks. However, most of them were so focused that they did not see the hope which this group of men could bring to townships. This is by no means an attempt to detract from or belittle the brave and selfless work that was done to fight against Apartheid.

Certainly, nobody in that team was ever going to believe for a moment that he could bring down apartheid, but many of the people on that team took their greatest pleasure in getting into the townships and coaching, and this was part of a growing momentum in South Africa. There was no reason they should have been, but that just happened to be the way it worked out. They did, and for most of them, the only refuge was England.

I have read so much rubbish over time, including one post that said that Kallicharran settled here in England after the South Africa tours. In actual fact, we had been living in England since 1972.

Others have said that those playing county cricket were particularly culpable for going to South Africa when they were on comfortable salaries in England. I love how ignorance and naivety is bliss. This was before the days of Sky Television, and I will happily reveal that in his final season at Warwickshire, some several years later in 1990, Alvin Kallicharran was on a basic salary of just over £11,000.

How often, however, do I wish my father had not gone to South Africa, for I believe that he would soon have been recalled to the West Indian side and cemented his place as one of the true legends of the game.

However, I also saw the good that he did there. He was thrown out of a white-only burger bar in Rosebank and he received many death threats, but he still continued to engage with the Asian and Black communities. It was not just that he engaged the oppressed minority, but he was himself engaged by others who had previously not spent time with any race other than their own.

We always invited the black workers in our complex over for dinner. Their pride did not want handouts; it wanted change, and we did not have the naivety to believe that we could provide it on our own, but we were determined to do our bit and to live with common decency.

When we were in South Africa, we met some of the most wonderful people who did not have a racist bone in their body. They, however, were not the ones making the rules. No side that Kallicharran played for in South Africa would drop him because he was Asian and not black.

Oh, he went for money? Yes, he did. He had the same bills to foot just like everyone else in the country. Is he going just for the money? Let the one who goes but much less trouble and a little more money have the laugh at someone else's expense.

When Warwickshire was so disgusting in their behavior, he was supporting his family. And when West Indies were holding him in contempt, he was supporting his family again.

These men were all guilty of an element of naivety.

They were all guilty of seeking the Rand. However, what they had in common were sets of circumstances brought about in several cases by the West Indian Cricket Board, and a need to put food on their tables. I really think they all could have gone to places other than South Africa and it would have probably been more appropriate—one certainly wouldn't think—had the impact it has on so many people's lives.

It is something they had to live with if they betrayed their own people. They certainly owed nothing to West Indian cricket, who have of course more recently shown that little has changed, with ongoing disputes with senior players.

But what most of them did was to do what was necessary to support those that they loved. For that, Rowe or any other that team, needs no apology. We all make choices, and we all live by them.

As a writer, I should set on to the record that I am West Indian first and above all.

Whether I am of Asian or African heritage matters not to me. From this derives the power of a source of pride and power to me—a West Indian, a small group of nations that has emerged with enough success in the sporting arena and above. In my own perspective, the Rebel tours to South Africa could and should have been curtailed and avoided. Yet, I also understand their right to earn a living, especially after they have clearly been victimized by their own nation's authorities; that's why this is a story of two sides, but only one ever got told and that has been the impetus of this work.

West Indies Cricket Legends

West Indies Cricket Legend

Cricket in the Caribbean: A Fusion of Culture and Passion

The Caribbean’s Love Affair with Cricket

A Carnival of Cricket: The T20 Fever

Grand Celebrations that Reflect the Culture of the Caribbean

Legends of the Pitch: Caribbean Cricket Heroes

The Soundtrack of the Game: Music and Cricket

Under the Lights: Memorable Matches

The Future of Cricket in the Caribbean

Post a Comment

Contact Form