White Player on West Indies Cricket Team

[Don Wassall]

White-man Nash had to overcome colour prejudice for his West Indies place





Born in Australia but having failed to get a regular place for Queensland, Brendan Nash is now in Test squad for the land of his father

Nash is shorter than the average ­modern cricketer and his dark and dapper looks, urgent movements and easy smile suggest Ben Stiller, the star of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Star. There has never been an underdog quite like Nash. This is the cricketer who was not good enough to hold down a place in the Queensland team, whose Caribbean roots were stirred when he was in Jamaica for the 2007 World Cup and who moved to Kingston to try to force his way into the West Indies Test side.



"I don't feel fraudulent," he says. "My parents are from Kingston. I was conceived in Jamaica. My mother was seven months pregnant when she left. So I guess while I was developing I heard the reggae music and my parents were dancing. I love the rum and reggae, though I'm still behind with the dancing and patois."


It has not been easy. "I think some ­people thought that I had come over here because I thought the cricket was weak, that I had come here to save them. We Jamaicans are a proud people. At four trial matches in a row some people came along and for an hour while I was batting they were constantly at me. 'Go home, white boy, you're no good. You couldn't make it there, so why are you here?' I thought it was pretty good sledging, actually."
full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/feb/02/cricket-england-west-indies-2009-westindiescricketteamEdited by: Don Wassall

 

[white is right]

Cricket was and still is (to a point) a rich mans game. The games take all day and they have tea breaks. Also the uniforms are formal suits that tennis players used to wear in the 20's. The lack of whites on West Indian Cricket teams is because of white flight which snow balled with black nationalist rule in the late 60's.

 

[Matra1]

I saw this guy play against England earlier in the year. Some of the soccer teams from the Caribbean have one or two white players.

I disagree with white is right. Cricket is not a rich man's sport. It has declined in the West Indies for various reasons - ranging from the decline in the quality of WI teams to the rise of soccer and American basketball. It is as popular as ever in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka - all poor countries. In Australia and New Zealand all kids have the opportunity to play the sport no matter what their parents' income. In England it can sometimes be a more middle and upper class sport in white areas but that is not new. The problem with English cricket is lack of resources, especially playing grounds for the young, and changing values (including Americanisation of most entertainment and the way sport is presented as 'product') making cricket look too old fashioned and, uh, English!

 

[white is right]

How did a poor person play this game in the 19th century? You had to miss a days work. It's roots are in the restricted British Universities of the late 19th century. Now its obviously changed but it still has this background. Football was the poor mans sports as the factory workers played during their lunch breaks and after work.

 

[Matra1]

The game wasn't only played at restricted universities, though that indeed was common in some parts of England, but anyway I'm talking about cricket today at the highest (ie. professional) level. Very few kids play 5 day cricket. You play at school for an hour or so, or at clubs or even academies where you hone your skills. It is only after you've established yourself as a skilled cricketer that you get the opportunity to play 5 day matches. By that time you can dedicate all your time to it.

BTW even before complete professionalisation the West Indies were the dominant team in the world from the late 70s until the early 1990s. Today they are not very good, especially when playing away from home. The almost all-white Australian teams have completely dominated the sport since the early 90s until a couple of years ago with the only real competition coming from the mostly white South Africans.


Edited by: Matra1