In 1993, there were more than 30 players of West Indian descent in county cricket, but nearly three decades later, the Caribbean presence in the English game is vastly diminished. Robert Winder explains what has caused the well to run dry.
Robert Winder is the author of The Little Wonder: the Remarkable History of Wisden, and Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain.
The unjust treatment of the Windrush generation was one of the stories of 2018. And if the term itself was loose, most people knew it referred to the Caribbean migrants who came to Britain in the 1950s and ’60s, in the wake of the original Windrush pioneers of 1948. They had worked, married, brought up families and grown old in the so-called mother country. Now, they found themselves on the wrong end of a hostile atmosphere, whipped up by panicky modern politics. Some had actually been deported back to the homes they had left behind.
It was a clear scandal. The early travellers encountered racism at every turn, whether they were looking for a house, a job, a drink or just a chat. For that cold tone to be echoed now, in official government policy, was a shock.
This is not the place to debate whether the episode was an assault on human liberty or merely a bureaucratic bungle (it has been said that one should not ascribe to malevolence what can be put down to stupidity). According to the historian and documentary maker David Olusoga, it was both. It was, he says, an “unexploded bomb” left by clumsy legislative initiatives in the 1960s and ’70s; but it was also shaped by lingering racial animosity. “Britain in those years accepted thousands of displaced people,” said Olusoga, “but panicked at the thought of migrants from the West Indies.”
The drop-off has, he agrees, been “astonishing… most of the urban areas where the [West Indian] population is haven’t ever played cricket, as it is not taught in schools”. But he is convinced there is still a “latent” West Indian feeling for the game, even if the first love of the youngsters he meets is football. The response so far has been “brilliant”: some 700 boys and girls attended his tournament in Deptford Park.
It is a worthy cause, reminiscent of the Haringey Cricket College run by Reg Scarlett (also ex-Jamaica). That produced several first-class cricketers, including Mark Alleyne. But it was a finishing school; Bell-Drummond is addressing an even more basic issue. Malcolm feels this is the key: “The thing about cricket is, you have to love it. That’s where it all has to start.”
History, like cricket, moves in mysterious ways. It would be ironic if, in coming to England, the grandchildren of the Windrush generation have been stripped of their love of cricket. Maybe it is not too late to put it back.
*Jofra Archer has since gone on to make his Test debut, in the 2019 Ashes series in England.
