West Indies Cricket

West Indies is not a nation, it is a cricket team that comprises of independent nations like Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, St Lucia, Jamaica etc. It has been playing Test Cricket since 1928. The West Indies cricket team was once a force to reckon with particularly in the 70s and in the early  80s, the team was simply invincible. 

West Indies produced some of the greatest fast bowlers ever like Andy Roberts, Malcom Marshall, Joel Garner, Micheal Holding(probably the fastest bowler ever) all of them were very fast disciplined and accurate and all of them were feared by batsmen around the world. So great was this bowling side that a world class fast bowler like Silvester Clarke rarely got a chance to play. 

Just like in their bowling the West Indies team back then had some of the best batsmen ever. The opening batsmen were the great Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Hayes another great, at number 3 came one of the greatest batsmen ever Vivian Richards followed by the captain and another great batsman and fielder Clive Lloyd. They had an excellent wicketkeeper in Jeff Dujon who could also bat and Larry Gomes was a decent allrounder. 

Michael Holding

Andy Roberts 

Malcom Marshall

Joel Garner

Sir Vivian Richards

Gordon Grenidge

Clive Lloyd

This was the team of the 70s and 80s when West Indies won the 1975 World Cup and 1979 World Cup respectively and were the finalists in the 1983 world cup. After Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards became the captain of the West Indian team and had a very successful captaincy career. West Indies cricket during its heydays were one of the best sports team of the world. Unbelievably talented and disciplined. They played entertaining and delightful cricket that cricket lovers across the world enjoyed. 

Even before this era there were lots of greats that West Indies had produced. Sir Garfield Sobers was the greatest allrounder ever in the history of the game. Even when West Indies cricket was in decline it did have great batsman like Brain Lara and Carl Hooper and great bowlers like Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh.

In time the Caribbean countries being so near to the United States started to get influenced by Basketball, American Football and Soccer. Being good in this games enabled them to get a scholarship in the US. Being good in Soccer enabled them to get a contract in EPL or Spanish League. So in time the popularity of cricket did come down in the Caribbean islands. 

However even today West Indies teams does have players of excellent quality like Darren Bravo, Dwayne Bravo, Chris Gayle, Lendel Simmons , Marlon Samuels, Kieron Pollard, a world class allrounder like Andre Russel , a mystry bowler like Sunil Narine( hopefully his action is fine), Jerome Taylor, Tino Best and others.