From The University of the West Indies

The
CLR James Cricket Research Centre, Cave Hill, Barbados. Friday,
September 6, 2019—Two
photographs in as many days tell the story of the future of West
Indies cricket. The first captures Floyd Reifer, West Indies interim
cricket coach, in conversation with Jamaican Dr Glen Mills, the
world’s best ever sprint coach/educator. The second is of Richard
Pybus, terminated West Indies coach, commenting on the West Indies
Test defeat against India at Sabina Park.

“These
images”, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Director of the CLR James
Cricket Research Centre at The University of the West Indies (The
UWI) says, “once again validate the theory that West Indian society
finds itself at a cross road, and cricket continues to serve as the
mirror in which it views itself”.

A
statement from Sir Hilary expands further:

In the
post-defeat narrative Pybus treats us to what he describes as his
‘Philosophy of West Indies Cricket progress’. This we shall call
the “PP” or Pybus
Philosophy. On examining the
assumptions and prescriptions of the PP, there is compelling proof of
it as a ‘call me back’ self-serving objective, mixed in with
inaccurate explanations for our performance results. Also, it
promotes a sleight of hand attempt to cover up the most damaging
vandalism ever imposed on West Indies cricket—his role in the
abolition of the West Indies High Performance Centre.

Stepping
back and across in order to get behind the moving ball, we
encountered evidence that is well known. Dr Rudy Webster, Windies
cricket visionary, pioneered the early development of the West Indies
Cricket Academy at the beginning of the globalization phase of
cricket. He did so at the St George’s University in Grenada.

In
the aftermath of this effective initiative, The UWI—in conjunction
with Sagicor Financial Corporation and the West Indies Cricket Board
under President Dr Julian Hunte, building on the Webster
legacy—established the High Performance Centre (HPC) at The UWI’s
3Ws Oval, in Cave Hill, Barbados.

The
HPC produced the young talent that has found its way into Windies
international cricket. Then entered Richard Pybus. In short time he
unleashed his slash-and-burn philosophy that resulted in its closure.
His hostility to the HPC, The UWI that hosted it, and cricket
educators in the region, became toxic.

PP
came out of the Mark Nicholas anti-West Indies school in England.
Nicholas, the primary philosopher stated explicitly that West Indians
have no intellectual talent or capacity to pull themselves up from
the performance valley into which they have fallen. According to
Nicholas, the peak of their success during the 20-year Clive
Lloyd-Viv Richards regimes was a ‘fluke’, rather than rooted in
resolve and reasoning. It was, he said, an act of nature and, like
“Halley’s comet”, ‘a thing of beauty’ when it lasted that
will never be seen by us again.

The
PP, like Nicholas’ Fluke
theory, is an expression of
English cricket racism in sport. Its first expression was the
shutdown of the HPC because it was not needed and therefore
irrelevant. In his thinking it was top heavy in the mental dimension
having produced top class players like Jason Holder, Carlos
Brathwaite, Shai Hope, and Shannon Gabriel. In the PP, these players
do not have to think for themselves; all they need to do is follow
him mindlessly and they will be fine. This was the thinking that saw
to his rejection in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In
giving a thumbs down to the HPC at its prime, young West Indies
players were fingered and thrown to the wolves. They became the only
international cricket team without an academy; the only competitive
cricket nation without a training and learning centre; the only team
of brilliant talent without a place to hone mental and technical
skills. This act of visionless vandalism struck at the very heart of
West Indian revival and resilience.

In
the PP, the weakening of young players would have no negative
performance impact because they were expected to leave the mental
aspect to him. He was the mind, the thinker, the new authority.
England arrived in the West Indies with a weakened side, showing
contempt for the Windies, because they were focused on winning the
World Cup.

It
was the performance of former HPC players that got the better of
them, not a Pybus vision. But it was Pybus who rolled out the
strategy that the Windies World Cup squad could be assembled in
England two weeks prior to the start and could be competitive.

Other
teams, primarily his England, were in World Cup building sessions for
months. As a result of his planning and thinking, Windies went in at
50% tournament ready, at best. This was obvious to the critical
cricket eye that saw a T20 rather than an ODI outfit. Discussions of
the poor results that followed should ideally have focussed on a
probe into the Pybus preparation plan rather than with players and
coaches. It will take a while for the West Indies to overcome the
damage caused by the PP since the closure of the HPC.

We
should be aware too of the power of external events that rock
internal development. There are rarely coincidences. This is the
second time since the Lloyd-Richards regimes that Windies have been
so undermined. South African cricket leaders, in order to undermine
Windies excellence, strategically pulled out our replacement ‘A’
players as rebels in the 1980s and early 1990s. This depleted the
bench. By the mid-1990s Windies stars were replaced by the ‘B’
bench. We fell steeply.

Furthermore,
the PP is really an expression of the new-colonial mind at work. The
colonizer, after conceding finally to the Independence demands of
natives, smirks at each national failure, and, as if guided by the
PP, says “Ok, you wanted change, Independence, and now you have it;
you can’t manage your own affairs; you are not ready to compete on
your own in the global space; now stop the pretence to independence
and agree to my return”.

This
is the racial ideology that drips from the core of the PP. It is
followed by the social theory that West Indian failures are rooted in
their cultural inability—the Nicholas “brainless
West Indians” discourse.
Conversely, West Indian success from Sir Frank Worrell, though Sir
Gary Sobers, and on to Sir Viv Richards, 50 years of
indigenous-inspired and led excellence, is described by Mark Nicholas
as a fluke, never to be seen again.

The
audacity of Nicholas finds expression in the outrage of the PP. They
are inherently anti-West Indian; PP, a part of the culture war
unleashed against the West Indians. Like all actions and thought that
deny the mental ability of natives, it is grounded in a support crew
of local collaborators. But it is the role of local collaborators
that makes the offense even more heinous.

The
‘gotcha game’ being played by Pybus and his local collaborators
is not only infantile, it is very dangerous. It goes beyond the
boundary of professional decency, and connects to all the challenges
that are currently facing West Indian people today. After the
progress came the recession. Did we fail or were we defeated? The
subtlety is not without substance.

To
promote a philosophy of self-reliance in search of a domestic
solution, based on partnerships with true global friends, attracts
hostility in some quarters. The spin experts have a field day turning
out the narrative. But to submit to postcolonial subjugation—bring
back the imperial mind to lead and determine domestic affairs—is to
face the pace of academics and other civil society strategists.

In
the presence of growing doubt and confidence, the collaborators—in
search of benefit—would hand back the nation to the imperialists.
Professional pirates of old believe that we West Indians are once
again ripe for the pickings. But this is not so. The resistance is
rising. It is inspired by the pantheon of Caribbean heroes from Nanny
of the Maroons and Sam Sharpe, from Kofi and Toussaint to Bussa to
Bogle, and onward to Marcus Garvey.

While
we prepare to push back the PP that West Indians have no performance
future without the imperial mind, and cannot build upon the
excellence of prior indigenous success, we recognize that sincere
foreign friends and global partners have always been a part of our
emergence to excellence.

There
is no rejection of the international in monopoly pursuit of the
national. That has never been the West Indian way. At the height of
our success, for example, was Dennis Waight, the Aussie fitness and
mental toughness mentor. Pybus, sadly, is not within this
international development tradition; he is imported from an imperial
core seeking to regain a foothold having disposed of the local
cricket school set up to free the minds of the youth.

Thinking
and timing and not griping and groaning are everything in sport. This
is why Floyd Reifer’s reaching out to Dr Mills in Jamaica for
guidance on how to train players in time management during an innings
is so significant. Mills is the greatest time manager of all times.
Less than 10 seconds in which to play is not magic; it is
intellectual magnificence. This is what the HPC was set up to do.
Manage moments in order to win.

The
photo of Reifer and Mills, therefore, signals the onset of an
enlightenment, a giant step into the future. The Pybus picture, on
the other hand, that seeks to sell the ‘I told you so tale’
constitutes, in the final instance, a loud call from a Caribbean
cemetery.

Notes

Photo
caption: Dr Glen Mills with Mr Floyd Reifer.

About
The UWI

For
more than 70 years The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has
provided service and leadership to the Caribbean region and wider
world. The UWI evolved from a university college of London in Jamaica
with 33 medical students in 1948 to an internationally respected,
regional university with near 50,000 students across five campuses:
Cave
Hill
in
Barbados; Mona
in Jamaica, Five
Islands
in
Antigua and Barbuda, St.
Augustine
in
Trinidad and Tobago; and an Open
Campus with over 42 locations serving 17 Caribbean territories.

The
world’s most reputable ranking agency, Times
Higher Education,
has ranked The UWI among the top 600 universities in the world for
2019, and the 40 best universities in Latin America and the Caribbean
for 2018 and 2019. The UWI is the only Caribbean-based University to
make these prestigious lists and is one of only two regional
universities in the world (the other being the University of South
Pacific).

As
part of its robust globalization agenda, The UWI has established
partnering centres with universities in North
America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa
including the State
University of New York (SUNY)-UWI Center for Leadership and
Sustainable Development;
the Canada-Caribbean Studies Institute with Brock University; the
Strategic Alliance for Hemispheric Development with Universidad de
los Andes (UNIANDES); The UWI-China Institute of Information
Technology, the University of Lagos (UNILAG)-UWI Institute of African
and Diaspora Studies and the
Institute for Global African Affairs with the University of
Johannesburg (UJ).

The
regional university offers more
than 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate, and postgraduate degree
options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities &
Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science & Technology, Social
Sciences and Sport. As
the region’s premier research academy, The UWI’s foremost
objective is driving sustainable economic growth and development.
Visit www.uwi.edu.

(Please
note that the proper name of the university is The University of the
West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)