12/21/24
February 23, 2016
Cricket Star Kieran Powell Tosses His Bat and Picks Up a Smaller, Rounder One: Powell, a star batsman who has played internationally for the West Indies, has chucked that all aside, for now at least, in a long-shot gamble to become a professional baseball player. See also: (video warning) MLB Tonight: Cricket Conversions. Why would a star player from West Indies look to another sport? Windies cricket seems to be in a pretty sorry spot, financially speaking.
Windies cricket seems to be in a pretty sorry spot, financially speaking.
My cousins in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago frequently rail about this on Facebook. They seem to place the majority of the blame on the WI Cricket bosses. From the article it sounds like more of the blame might be placed on the international group for giving out smaller slices of the pie. The nature of the West Indies is also to blame. West Indies is not a country, it is scattered nation-islands with small populations, with economies that are small and vulnerable, an inter-island transportation that tends to be unreliable (my T&T cousin regularly posts horror stories of 30 minute flights that require 2 days to complete), and no efficient way of developing a viable professional league. With all of these difficulties in place, and the English cultural heritage losing its influence, I'm surprised the decline in the sport has not been more rapid. It's a pity, as I recently found out that one of my uncles was a decent pace bowler for Barbados back in the day. I would like to think that my mom's family had some small part in perpetuating a tradition.
posted by Howard_T at 04:15 PM on February 24, 2016
Great post, Howard. Also speaking of Windies Cricket, I've CLR James' "Beyond a Boundary" sitting on my nightstand, waiting for me to finish "The Three-Body Problem."
posted by NoMich at 07:28 PM on February 24, 2016
In Australia, they used to play senior baseball in the winter, so cricket players could keep fit in the off season. In recent memory, Alan Border was a State level baseball player, and Ian Chappell used to be pretty decent.
Who's the loudmouth wanker on MLB Tonight? Jeez, what a tool.