Читать книгу No Win Race. A Story of Belonging, Britishness and Sport онлайн

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If you can’t beat them on the field of play, change the rules of the game. How else do you undermine a movement? The media mediates, sways public opinion. There were calls for changes. Increase the over rate. Sanctions. Reduce the number of non-English players in the County Championship. Reduce bouncers. The media and authorities conspired to undermine the impact and indeed the legacy of the West Indies.

The West Indies never stood a chance. No infrastructure. No sway. Still dependent, colonialised. Beginning of the end. The West Indies never controlled the narrative, never had control of the game in the areas where it really mattered. They always had a cricket board with no money, a board that bowed to bigger boards, aboard someone else’s ship.

The colonial attitude of the establishment had not just been confined to the West Indies team. As a West Indies fan, I never followed the black players who represented the English national team. They felt like traitors, sell-outs. But those black players had been subjected to just as much hostility from the press as the West Indies team. And they were meant to be allies.