Desmond Haynes talks to Taha Hashim about West Indies’ disappointing display at the World Cup, England’s devastating openers, Jofra Archer and the state of cricket in the Caribbean.
“‘My Perfect Day’ – I’m not getting that.”
It’s not the start I was looking for. Sat across me is Desmond Haynes – 116 Tests, 238 ODIs, 35 international hundreds to his name and, back in the day, Gordon Greenidge’s fearsome opening partner for West Indies. We’re in a room on Tottenham Court Road and I thought my job would be quite simple: ask him a few questions about what his dream day at the cricket would look like. It’s all part of a regular feature that pops up in Wisden Cricket Monthly.
“In our museum, we highlight all the Barbadians who went on to play Test cricket. We have a board that will fill up this room, and there’s more because the ones that are playing now, we can’t put them. You have to be retired. We might have to look for a building to put on display all the Barbadians that have played cricket for West Indies!”
As we began our chat on the erroneous ways of CWI, it seems fitting that we return to it to cap it all off.
“As a cricketing nation, we are going to find cricketers. But what we want administrators to do is to make sure we have a system in place that when we identify talent at an early stage, there’s somewhere for him to go.
“Every territory should have a cricket academy and then we should have one academy which would have the crème de la crème. We’ve got to get them in a programme with the best people looking after them and go from there.
“I find that in the Caribbean, it is a shame that the administration hate to hear out past players. They need to embrace them. They’re not going to tell you everything you want to hear but there must be something they’re going to say where they’re going to go ‘wow, okay let’s try it this way’.”
***
After a rocky start, it seems that Haynes and I have managed to negate a tricky new-ball spell together. For just short of a half-hour, he’s funny, honest and game for anything that doesn’t involve discussing cricketing dream sequences.
As we wrap up, he finishes off in style.
“I think that’s a lot better than ‘My Perfect Day’.”
For more information on cricket in Barbados please visit: www.visitbarbados.org
