ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to show, the politics of West Indian cricket have been contoured successively by ‘race’, colonisation, nationalism and globalisation. The West Indian cricket team began to falter in the early 1990s. When they were beaten by Australia at Sabina Park, Kingston, in April 1995 they experienced their first series defeat since 1980. Hilary Beckles suggested that in the history of West Indies cricket ‘Frank Worrell is the Father of the Nation, Sobers is the King of Cricket, Clive Lloyd is the Statesman, Richards is the General of the Army, Brian Lara is the Prince, and Chris Gayle is the Don’. Following the dismantling of the West Indian Federation, the West Indies team became, de facto, the flagship for a nationalist project which had no nation. The West Indies Players Association immediately demanded the sacking of Beckles, who at the time was a Director of the West Indies Cricket Board.
