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

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This had been a weakened West Indian team; no Marshall, Holding or Garner, no Greenidge or Lloyd. But to lose to England, still embarrassing. West Indies’ following match came against Sri Lanka, then still a minor side. But given that the Sri Lankans were playing at home, I feared the worst. Richards once more rose to the occasion. He hit 181 runs off 125 balls, momentarily silencing my teacher.

Temporary reprieve. The teacher took the captaincy of the school cricket team away from me. No reason. Gave it to a white kid, one of his favourite players from the football team. The only white kid on the team. Under my captaincy, the team had been poor. Under the white kid’s leadership, we were just as bad if not worse. I wanted the captaincy back. I’d been playing well. Felt as if I was still the best player in the team.

I approached the teacher and told him that I wanted to captain the team again, or to at least co-captain. He said no, insulted that I would ask such a thing. I asked him why. He refused to respond. So, I refused to play. He made me run laps around the sports field in every PE lesson. At the start of every session, he’d growl, ‘Are you going to play?’ I’d say no. And then he would make me do laps while the other kids played football or cricket.