Sometime back I had the pleasure of watching “Fire
in Babylon”. It is a documentary which showcases the rise of the West Indian
cricket team to the pinnacle of the sport. Led by a fearless leader, Clive
Lloyd, the West Indian cricket team adopted the motto “one for all, all for
one”. The West Indian team consists of players from all the Caribbean islands.
All islands come under the same banner only for the West Indian cricket team.
When people from so many cultures share the same dressing room, there’s bound
to be conflict. Still, the West Indian players came together against the common
enemy, Australia and England. West Indian cricket team ruled international
cricket from the mid 70s to late 80s. They never lost a test series at home, in
fact, till the mid 90s.
But, as the 90s rolled by, the decline had started.
Players like Sir Vivian Richards, Malcolm Marshall and company retired one
after the other. There was no successive planning in place to blood in the
youngsters. And hence, the West Indian cricket team started their journey
towards the wrong end of the world rankings. The nadir was when West Indies
lost the home test series to Bangladesh. A lot of factors had played a part.
The internal politics of the cricket board, the player’s strike, cricket been
replaced by basketball as the most popular game in the Caribbean were some of
the reasons which led to the downfall of West Indian cricket.
But, finally in 2012, the tide seems to be changing.
The West Indies cricket team is the newly crowned World T20 Champions. In
today’s West Indian team, they have no dearth of impact players like Chris
Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Bravo, Marlon Samuels and they have the best
mystery spinner in Suniel Narine.
But, the unsung hero of the whole campaign was their
captain, Darren Sammy. Experts have cast their apprehensions even on his place
in the side but he has given everything he had to get the team to gel together
and to top it, he has led from the front. He has managed all the egos in the
dressing room to form a band of merry men who gave us such joy with their way
of playing cricket and celebrating their win. If for nothing else, just for their
inhibited celebrations, they deserved to win the T20 World Cup.
There are a lot of management lessons one can pick
up from the story of the journey of West Indian cricket team. How to build a
team , what not to do to destroy the legacy, how a leader should mould and lead
their team, how to out-think your opponent, and most of all, how to beat the
odds and emerge victorious.
The joy which West Indies cricket brings is really
required at this time in international cricket. Whenever West Indies cricket is
going well, world cricket is more interesting to watch.
Let the celebrations go on Gangnam Style!
