When I read this book, a lot of powerful memories returned. I recalled places and events and fragments of conversations that hadn’t entered my mind for years; I remembered long-forgotten scenes from dressing rooms, airport lounges, hotel lobbies. Bus journeys through Pakistani mountain passes and slightly less terrifying coach trips from Nottingham to Swansea. Once again I heard Joel Garner’s deep laugh and the infectious chuckle of Alvin Kallicharran. Once more I saw that look in Viv’s eyes when he knew it was going to be his day. I glimpsed Desmond Haynes’s mischievous raised eyebrows, which were the sign that some kind of horseplay was around the corner.
Small moments from big games came back to me too: taking guard in a Test match at Melbourne and looking up through the heat haze and the din to see Dennis Lillee in the distance, ready to do his worst. I remember leaning on my bat at the non-striker’s end at the Oval and inhaling the exuberant buzz that only a West Indian cricket crowd far from home can create. A small moment that brought me great pride. How could we not try to do our best with that kind of support?
Sitting at my desk as I write, I can almost feel my soaked shirt sticking to my shoulders again as I slumped on a dressing-room bench after a game. Time and again over ten seasons that sensation was often accompanied by dizzying elation – a Test win, a series victory and twice a World Cup. Of course, there were also times when sitting on that bench all I felt was frustration or a disappointment so heavy that it could have overwhelmed me. Reading Fire in Babylon has reminded me that being captain of the West Indies brought so many privileges – and so many emotions.
With the hindsight of nearly 40 years, I believe two words sum up those days: joy and hope. The joy came from sharing a field with a very special group of sportsmen, and the hope came from our belief that tomorrow could be even better, that there was more excellence to come, that the job was not complete.
From my first Test as captain at Bangalore in 1974, through the adventure of World Series Cricket, to my last Test in Sydney in 1985, I played alongside 45 other West Indian cricketers. Some, like Arthur Barrett and Rangy Nanan, I captained just a couple of times. Others, such as Vivian Richards and Michael Holding, seemed to walk on every step of the same path. But whether these men were there for a pace or a mile, we all achieved something memorable. It was an unforgettable decade. Building on what had been patiently laid down, we turned the West Indies into winners and brought joy and respect to the region. It sounds simple, unremarkable even, but when you consider our painful history, the bitter impositions forced upon those who came before us and the particular ordeals that the inhabitants of the Caribbean have had to overcome each day of their lives, you can begin to understand why winning cricket matches for the West Indies meant so much to us all – those at home and those making their way around the world. Excellence had arrived. Our collective and individual skills had at last been recognised and could not be denied any longer. We represented a people who could make a difference. As the great writer C. L. R. James put it, we had entered the comity of nations.
What I particularly like about Fire in Babylon is the way it explains how the tradition of West Indian cricket developed. At the end of the book – and I hope I’m not giving anything away here – the author writes that the teams led by Vivian Richards and me did not fall from passing comets, ready to go. He’s right. We had to fight hard to get to where we did. We had battles with our own administrators. We took on those less discerning people who believed that men and women from the Caribbean had nothing good to offer. We stood firm against those inside the game who tried to blunt our talents by changing the laws of cricket. The players came through it all, but at times it was very tough. There are many revealing interviews in this book but, believe me, there are other things that we haven’t shared, things that will stay private. It wasn’t always easy. Yet even in the midst of disappointments, disagreements or setbacks, I knew that we could draw on the great men of our past for inspiration. In my playing days I always felt the shade from the branches of our cricket family tree. I believe its roots are deeper and stronger than those of all the other cricket-playing nations. I knew that Rohan Kanhai and Garry Sobers had learned from Frank Worrell and that he in turn had taken good things from the example of George Headley and Learie Constantine. When it was my time to lead the side, the knowledge that there were links in the chain to which I was connected was an invaluable source of strength.
My great hope is that today’s West Indian cricketers can somehow absorb that strength too. We all know that the sides written about in Fire in Babylon enjoyed very different fortunes to those of the past few years. I am now in my sixth decade with West Indian cricket. I have been a player, captain, coach, manager, board member and selector. I will never give up trying to get us to where I know we can be. The joy may have been rationed in recent years, but we must always have hope. Always. Just to read about fellows like Charles Ollivierre in this book fills me with hope. Here was a young man setting off into the unknown more than a hundred years ago, unsure of the outcome. A pioneer for West Indian cricket. A man with determination and a dream. I know there are young cricketers with similar strength of character in the Caribbean today. They must be protected and encouraged.
This is a fine book indeed. I doubt there will be a better book written about this period in West Indies cricket history. We have been blessed with writers who have understood what the game has meant to the people of the Caribbean – C. L. R. James, Michael Manley, Hilary Beckles, Tony Cozier and Tony Becca. I know that the author is from London town and not Georgetown, but Fire in Babylon has added to that long tradition.
Clive Lloyd CBE
April 2015