Fire in Babylon: How the West Indies Cricket Team Brought a People to its Feet
Fire in Babylon was gifted by my wife on my last birthday. She thought that given that I am an ardent cricket fan, I would really enjoy this book. As with most of the books, I did not read this book upon its receipt. Moreover, I had seen the documentary "Fire in Babylon" in parts and did not quite enjoy its theme around racism and its repercussions on sports. So I postponed reading this book as long I could. But when I was alone in my office one day earlier this year, I happened to pick up this book and read through first few pages. I then realized what I had missed all this while.
Racism is a delicate matter in our times. Honestly, when was the last time you discussed race, skin color, white privileges and discrimination while sitting in a bar with your friends? Its kind of outdated and outlandish to hear about racial discrimination and racial vilification in these modern times. Currently in our modern world, the things that do matter are perhaps terrorism, anti-globalization or machines taking over human jobs. What if you go back half a century or even for that matter a few decades, racial discrimination and vilification was one of the most burning topics in most of continents. There was apartheid in South Africa which was only eradicated in that country in early 1990s. The black struggle in USA was at its highest point in 1960-1970. Racial discrimination takes its toll not only on the psyche of the people being discriminated but it also affects the different aspects of our society. One such aspect that is affected is sports, and this book is all about how racial discrimination and vilification changed the course of history of a sports like cricket.
If you are a fan of cricket as a sports, you might be very familiar with its history on how the great team from the West Indies ruled the sport for good two decades from late 1970s to mid 1990s. There is no other team in world cricket which dominated the sport for such a length of time. More so, very modern good team that has dominated this sport is compared with the great West Indian team of that era in terms of statistics and aura. If you look for “West Indies” in the database of nations or nation states you wouldn’t find it. If you follow the cricket as much as I do, you would only realize in your late teens that “West Indies” is the name of a team which comprises of players from nations in the Caribbean. The fact that a team consisting of players from different nations could become the greatest ever team in world cricket is an astonishing accomplishment. If you think in terms of what other prominent cricket playing countries like India, Australia and England have achieved in the history, the accomplishment of the West Indian team from 1970s to 1990s is colossal.
If you happen to know the Caribbean you might be aware that most Caribbean islands were European colonies. These Caribbean islands were mostly inhabited with black Africans who were bought in slave trade in Africa and sent to Caribbean islands to work on sugar plantations. Most Caribbean islands achieved their independence from the rule of the queen and other European countries after Second World War. But the newly found freedom from the European control did not end racism and poverty. From many excerpts in this book you could find instances where many black Africans from Caribbean who migrated to England in search of better jobs and earning living to support their families in Caribbean, had to suffer a lot of racial abuse from the native population of Britain. Their was discrimination meted out to black immigrants in terms of the jobs they could do, apartments they could rent or the times during nights it was safe to travel. Such kind of racial discrimination was even more prevalent in South Africa where the native black population had very little rights as compared to the elite white populous. This practice was known as the apartheid which led to banishment of South Africa from participation in any of the prominent world events like the Olympics and Cricket World Cup.
The West Indian team of the 1970s had experienced racial abuse and differentiation in their childhood and early adulthood. Some of players had received scholarships to go to England and played for smaller cricket teams. These players had first hand experienced of every form of racial abuse and discrimination. On the other hand, whenever these players from Caribbean did well, it gave other people from Caribbean, who suffered from similar racial abuses, to celebrate and enjoy the success of these cricketers against the cricket teams comprising of white players. A lot of Caribbean cricket players of the 1970s and 1980s were fiercely driven with the feeling that they had to do well on the sporting field as just as sportsman but as representatives of their black community around the world. Not that Caribbean players of that era, like Vivan Richards, Clive Lloyd, Any Roberts or Michael Holding were any less talented but the compassion for their people made them superb competitors on the field.
If you are a cricket fan like me, you will love the way the author has described the cricket series played by West Indies from 1975 to 1990 throughout the book. Though there are no scorecards but the author has quoted a lot interviews of players who give interesting anecdotes of how the different test series were played, who was most annoying opposition player and if the cricket umpires played a part in the final result of a test series. Apart from these test series reviews, the author gives a good amount of detail on how world series cricket, brainchilded by Australian businessman Kerry Packer, changed cricket's business model, massively increased the pay of the elite cricketers, brought professionalism in thinking and performance of players, increased the fitness level of players and kick started one day cricket to as we know it now. It is fascinating to note how the West Indian players were signed up for the world series contracts and how the national cricket boards reacted to outcast them from playing for their respective national teams. The world series cricket reminds us of the current days of T20 cricket leagues where every cricket crazy country has one or more such leagues. Then their is a big chapter on mercenary cricket initiative in apartheid torn South Africa. This particular chapter is very interesting as it shows how some of the black West Indian, who participated in world series cricket for the lure of handsome sum of money, declined to go and play league cricket in apartheid torn South Africa even when they were offered ridiculous sum of money. The thinking behind this sentiment can not only be found in the protest against the South African apartheid policies but also found in their solidarity and gesture for the racially abused black population of South Africa. It is also pitiful to read about the Caribbean cricketers who went and played in mercenary cricket leagues in South Africa in those times. These cricketers upon their return to the Caribbean islands were subjected to social isolation from their own families and society. Lastly, their are a lot of sections in the book where the four pronged pace attack of this great West Indies side was chided by media for their relentless short pitch and dangerous fast bowling. There were some painful incidents of batsman getting hit on the head with the that hard cricket ball and losing their eye sight for good. However, among the players there was very less criticism of this art of fast bowling. The payers themselves saw the West Indian strategy of fast bowling well within the rules of the game.
The interesting fact this book is that the author wrote the book after the motion picture "Fire in Babylon" was released. The author took the player's interview recordings from the director of this movie and wrote the book subsequently after the movie was launched. This is very unlike the current trend where mostly movie are made on a popular fiction or non-fiction book. This book is not entirely about sports persons, on how they train or how they think or what do they eat but this book is about how the socio-economic and political system in our society mold the way players approach their passion of the game and what keeps their competitive juices flowing. This book is not an easy read and you could get lost in the small stories of various lesser known people but if you reach to the end of the book you would have lived the racial struggles of non-white people, "somewhat", in the last century.
