CLR James devotes the third chapter of the first section of his magnificent cricket book, Beyond a Boundary, to what he calls ``the Old School Tie''. In it, he discusses two intangibles, restraint and loyalty, that shaped his entire life.
Let me quote James at some length.
``Then in 1950 came a series of events which I could not ignore. Day after day there appeared in the press authenticated reports that university basketball teams had sold out games or played for results arranged beforehand, in return for money from bookmakers.''
Assuring us that although he had not made the mistake that so many otherwise intelligent Europeans make of trying to fit the United States into European standards, James confesses to being horrified by the phenomenon.
``This was too much-how could these young men behave in that way? Before I could choose my words I found myself saying that adults in Trinidad or in Britain, in the world of business or private life, could or would do anything, more or less.
But in the adult world of sport, certainly in cricket, despite the tricks teams played upon one another, I had never heard of any such thing and did not believe it possible. That young men playing for school or university should behave in this way on such a scale was utterly shocking to me.''
And what of young men playing for country? Would James have been shocked by the recent revelations concerning match-fixing et al? Would he have been shocked by the meeting in London? By the performance of the West Indies team in South Africa so far?
Or would he have been shocked by the failure of the pundits to see it coming?
Perhaps we can usefully move ahead a couple of decades to another commentator.
Dr Gordon Rohlehr, reviewing The Harder They Come, that excellent West Indian film of the turbulent 1970s in an issue of Tapia, is moved to lament ``the purblindness of the West Indian intelligentsia''. One manifestation of that ``purblindness'' is the tendency to treat as separate and distinct what, for Rohlehr, are phenomena clearly related one to the other.
But really Rohlehr's lament is no more than James in another guise. What know they of cricket, he asks in the preface to Beyond a Boundary, who only cricket know?
Every Saturday in the Express, another commentator reminds us that what characterises the educated West Indian elites is that desire to compartmentalise, to treat various fields of endeavour as non-communicating vases, that failure to make obvious vital connections, to see what is about to happen well before it happens.
According to him, there are no easy automatic answers for Africans and Indians compelled to practise European culture in America. But we are in charge and it is our responsibility to be constantly seeking to discover where we are headed long before we get there. We cannot simply wait for the s..t to hit the fan and then duck out of the way. So why are we surprised at what is happening in South Africa? Did Rohan Kanhai not warn us as early as 1993 that our next innings begins at zero?
Was there not more than a hint of our vaingloriousness in the frantic, ultimately futile 64 that we scored in the innings defeat at Kensington in 1994?
How can we fail to see the connection between that innings and Sparrow's Slave, ``caught and brought here from Africa'' to work under the remorseless eye of the white slavemaster's whip and gun but insisting, nonetheless, that salvation must take the form of ``a brilliant escape''?
And were we not reminded of it by Nixon McLean's ``whirlwind 31'' in the first innings and our ``breezy 39'' in the darkest hour before the final collapse of the second innings in Port Elizabeth?
Is there not a nexus of unresponsibility that links the PM's fulminations against the media in general and Natalie Williams in particular and the captain's candemnation of the ``support bowlers'' in the post-match interview after the batsmen had been able to improve on their first innings 121 by just 20 runs?
Was there not in Owen Arthur's ``colonialism'' response to the events in London a clue to the complete innocence, impotence even, of the WICB? Against that background, is it really a surprise that our cricket is where it is? Is regaining and maintaining world supremacy a realistic goal? Are we, in the conditions prevailing as we approach the new millenium, in any position to aspire realistically to return to the top of the pile? Or are we sinking inexorably towards the bottom?
Australia are at the top; that is beyond dispute. Sure they lost to India in India earlier this year but they have beaten all others. And they are currently humiliating England who gave us a real fight before succumbing 3-1. But, by fair means or foul, England narrowly got the better of South Africa who, if we are not careful, will humiliate us in a way we have not known since 1975/76.
And perhaps the unfavoured Kiwis will also lift themselves to a win over Sachin Tendulkar and his high-flying Indians who shared their last series with us in the Caribbean.
To warn us just how much there really is in it, Zimbabwe are now in with a chance of taking their three-match series against the Pakistanis who thoroughly trounced us by massive margins one short year ago.
So it is just possible that Lara's men will turn things around and bring us out of this with our heads held high. But is it likely? For those who want a straw to clutch at, there is precedent: Australia in 1993 when we came back to snatch a remarkable 2-1 victory after going into the penultimate Test down under geographically, mathematically and emotionally.
Tony Cozier says that ``it will demand real character from everyone, especially those at the top, to keep the West Indies from the freefall to disaster that again threatens it.''
That use of the singular is a deliberate attempt to appeal to the ``restraint and loyalty'' that James identifies in the ``Window to the World'' with which Beyond a Boundary opens.
But for this bunch of young black West Indians condemned to play on the huge African continent a British game against white South Africans before small largely white audiences of Africans, I fear the task will prove too much.
Those who more than cricket know are clear that regaining supremacy will have to wait for the new millennium.