The Golden Era of the West Indies cricket

There was a time when the West Indies team ruled in the cricket world. It was also a big challenge to defeat the West Indies and challenge them. The cohesion of the West Indies team, consisting of several small countries of North America, was observable. At that time, it was considered a great achievement for a team to compete with this Caribbean team and to fight it to victory.

Source

Leave aside the talk of the new fledgling teams, the condition of the frontline teams was also weak in front of this team. That period of success for the West Indies team began in the 70s and continued until the early 90s. This period was the golden period of the West Indies team and was not only the West Indies but the best period of any team playing cricket. If we leave out the body line series, then hardly any sweat is left in playing against a team as much as in playing against the West Indies.

The only difference between the body line series and the Windies team of that period was that in the body line series, where the England fast bowlers used to intimidate the opposing players with their negative tactics, the Caribbean team gave their opponents the strength of their sportsmanship.

Source

At that time, the West Indies team was full of great players, each one being a match winner. Wally Hammond, Lance Gibbs, George Hadley, Sir Gary Sobers, Sir Frank Worrell, Sir Clyde Walcott, Sir Everton Vicks, Clive Lloyd, Alvin Kalicharan, Rohan Kanhai, Vivian Richards, Geoffrey Dujon, Desmond Hanes, Gordon Greenidge, Brian Lara, Shivnarayan Chandrapal, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Sir Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, Sir Curtley Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, etc. were many such precious jewels that each team wanted to have in its ring.

These names were so big in themselves that even playing against them was a matter of pride for their opponents. The greatness of these players reflects the performance performed by the West Indies team in that period.

Source

After the retirement of many more players such as Vivian Richards, Desmond Hanes, Garden Greenies, Jeff Dooz in the 90s, the West Indies team began to lack experience, leaving the likes of Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chandrapal and Kurtley Ambrose to the Windies for older players The players who could fill the position could not be found, due to which their graph started falling downwards.

Be it Test cricket or one-day matches, other teams started competing and defeating the West Indies. Now the other teams not only stopped being afraid in front of them, but also learned to put eyes in their eyes. After that began the phase of the decline of the Caribbean team, which has not stopped yet and the process is still going on.

Source

The West Indies team not only missed out on qualifying in the 1992 World Cup due to their poor performance, but also lost the winning game to the Australian team in the semi-finals of the 1996 World Cup like a novice. He also suffered a humiliating defeat to qualifier Kenya in the same World Cup. The impregnable fort of the West Indies, which once ruled an umbrella over the whole world, was now collapsing. Then, whether it is a Test match series or a one-day series, the start of the Windies team's defeat has started.

Talking about the World Cup, whether it is the 1999 World Cup or 2003, the 2007 World Cup played at home, or the 2011 World Cup, otherwise the last World Cup of 2015, it is far from winning the West Indies title. Also failed to make it to the finals. Not only this, in addition to the big teams in these World Cup matches, they also had to face defeat by qualifying teams like Kenya, Ireland and Afghanistan.

Source

Yes, the West Indies team is hopeful of making a comeback by performing well in between, but then it has also tarnished itself due to its poor performance. While she became the winner in the Champion's Trophy in 2004 as well as the runner up in 1998 and 2006. On the other hand, she could not even qualify for the Champions Trophy played this year.

Apart from this, WI became a two-time champion in T20 in 2012 and 2016. WI also won the women's T20 World Cup and the youth U19 World Cup in 2016, and raised hopes again for the future. But after that, the two-time One Day and T20 champions failed to qualify directly for the next World Cup due to their poor ranking. In such a situation, the question arises that can the West Indies team ever repeat its golden past?

---