Description
The collapse of West Indies cricket performance standards in the mid-1990s, from the pinnacle of the 1980s, remains one of the most dramatic examples of nationalist dislocation and demobilization in the face of a refashioned global circumstance. In this two-volume work, West Indian academic Hilary Beckles present a lively, well-researched and thought-provoking analysis of the ebb and flow in West Indies cricket fortunes. The two books are compulsory reading for any cricket lover. The second volume of this landmark study, The Age of Globalisation, covers the ‘third rising’ of West Indies cricket. Beckles examines the growing commercialization of the sport, the changing attitudes among Caribbean cricketers and the impact of the globalisation of cricket on them. He also describes the emergence of what he argues is a ‘debilitating subnationalism’ in the West Indies, and the effect this has had on the game and the prospects for integrating West Indian nationhood in the 21st century. The book is loaded with fascinating insights and information about all aspects of West Indies cricket and reveals many of the hidden truths behind the rumours which have shrouded the West Indian game. The reader benefits from a decade of the author’s life spent in close contact and discussion with the main figures in West Indies cricket.