Watching Ravi Bopara and Owais Shah help steer England to a comfortable one-day (50 overs) win against a hapless West Indies at the anonymous Bristol ground today, one’s mind flipped to the news broadcast earlier in the week of Chris Lewis’ conviction for cocaine smuggling.
The players of colour who’ve most recently made an impact on England’s cricket have been of Asian origin. Maybe it’s no coincidence that when he was captain a decade ago Nasser Hussain revivified an England team as demotivated as the West Indies is now. Dimitri Mascarhenas was also in today’s side, Monty Panesar may be in the team for the next Test match, and the young Yorkshire all-rounder Adil Rashid is said to be knocking on the door. Amjad Khan played a single Test in the Caribbean this last winter, although his complicated pedigree takes in Denmark as well as the sub-continent.
Where are our cricketers of Afro-Caribbean background? There was a time when if they weren’t legion there was at least a healthy representation. Devon Malcolm is one now remembered with misty-eyed affection. Tall and gangling, and possessed of a bowling action which was apt to go AWOL when he got over-excited (which seemed to be quite often), Devon’s finest hour came when, having been clouted ringingly on the helmet in the course of a customarily brief sojourn at the crease, he told an over-brash South African team ‘you guys are history’ and proceeded to take nine of the ten wickets available in the next innings. He became a National Hero overnight, his myopic batting only adding lustre to his legendary status. But there were others. The first black England fast bowler was the late Norman Cowans, shock-haired and bustling, and after him came David Lawrence, whose unforgettable, uncompromising charge to the bowling crease sadly led to a crippling injury in New Zealand, and Alex Tudor, whose early promise of high pace was never quite fulfilled. Philip de Freitas was an England stalwart for many years, although his fine control of cut and swing never seemed to get quite the rewards it should: a lack of genuine pace maybe blunted his great skill to some degree. And who can forget Warwickshire’s Gladstone Small, a real hundred per-center with an unusual body shape, who converted himself from an out and out paceman into a far more subtle bowler as his career developed. He never let England down either.
Chris Lewis was perhaps the most naturally gifted of all of them. His England career should have been long and distinguished. He had everything. As a bowler his loose-limbed, economical action allowed him to deliver the ball rapidly. He was a fine fielder, and an explosive batsman: his highest county score was 247, and he played several fine innings for England. But there was always an angle. Early in his England career he fell victim to sunstroke during a Test Match in Australia, the result of shaving his head and then failing to wear a sun-hat. The ‘Sun’ newspaper (appropriate, that!) labelled him ‘The Prat without a hat’. Lewis was a handsome man, but combining modelling and sport always seems to spell trouble. And he left the game alleging that several England colleagues had been willing to take bribes to throw matches in which they had been involved. It did not make him the most popular person in cricket.
But although the latter turn of events left a bad taste, it’s not a crime to fail to make it at the highest level in your chosen professional sport. One bad decision can be the difference between a celebrated career and a forgotten one, and we who watch or comment have to maintain proper humility – most of us simply haven’t been there. And what on earth is it like when the fame and glamour is suddenly gone overnight, and there’s nothing to fall back on, despite the advice you were given when you were sixteen?
It’s still immensely sad that a great opportunity has been wasted: Chris Lewis could have been a fantastic role model, and the effects might have been felt way beyond sport. Instead the reverse has happened, and he’ll now have many years in prison to review what has happened, with uncertain consequences. But…he’s still only 41, and maybe he’ll be free in seven years or so with a chance of doing something to redress the balance. And we really need for this to happen. This bunch of touring West Indians aren’t going to have Britain’s black youngsters flocking to the nets in emulation of their heroes. And I wonder if Messrs Gayle & co. will consider that when they pocket their appearance money after today’s miserable display?
The players of colour who’ve most recently made an impact on England’s cricket have been of Asian origin. Maybe it’s no coincidence that when he was captain a decade ago Nasser Hussain revivified an England team as demotivated as the West Indies is now. Dimitri Mascarhenas was also in today’s side, Monty Panesar may be in the team for the next Test match, and the young Yorkshire all-rounder Adil Rashid is said to be knocking on the door. Amjad Khan played a single Test in the Caribbean this last winter, although his complicated pedigree takes in Denmark as well as the sub-continent.
Where are our cricketers of Afro-Caribbean background? There was a time when if they weren’t legion there was at least a healthy representation. Devon Malcolm is one now remembered with misty-eyed affection. Tall and gangling, and possessed of a bowling action which was apt to go AWOL when he got over-excited (which seemed to be quite often), Devon’s finest hour came when, having been clouted ringingly on the helmet in the course of a customarily brief sojourn at the crease, he told an over-brash South African team ‘you guys are history’ and proceeded to take nine of the ten wickets available in the next innings. He became a National Hero overnight, his myopic batting only adding lustre to his legendary status. But there were others. The first black England fast bowler was the late Norman Cowans, shock-haired and bustling, and after him came David Lawrence, whose unforgettable, uncompromising charge to the bowling crease sadly led to a crippling injury in New Zealand, and Alex Tudor, whose early promise of high pace was never quite fulfilled. Philip de Freitas was an England stalwart for many years, although his fine control of cut and swing never seemed to get quite the rewards it should: a lack of genuine pace maybe blunted his great skill to some degree. And who can forget Warwickshire’s Gladstone Small, a real hundred per-center with an unusual body shape, who converted himself from an out and out paceman into a far more subtle bowler as his career developed. He never let England down either.
Chris Lewis was perhaps the most naturally gifted of all of them. His England career should have been long and distinguished. He had everything. As a bowler his loose-limbed, economical action allowed him to deliver the ball rapidly. He was a fine fielder, and an explosive batsman: his highest county score was 247, and he played several fine innings for England. But there was always an angle. Early in his England career he fell victim to sunstroke during a Test Match in Australia, the result of shaving his head and then failing to wear a sun-hat. The ‘Sun’ newspaper (appropriate, that!) labelled him ‘The Prat without a hat’. Lewis was a handsome man, but combining modelling and sport always seems to spell trouble. And he left the game alleging that several England colleagues had been willing to take bribes to throw matches in which they had been involved. It did not make him the most popular person in cricket.
But although the latter turn of events left a bad taste, it’s not a crime to fail to make it at the highest level in your chosen professional sport. One bad decision can be the difference between a celebrated career and a forgotten one, and we who watch or comment have to maintain proper humility – most of us simply haven’t been there. And what on earth is it like when the fame and glamour is suddenly gone overnight, and there’s nothing to fall back on, despite the advice you were given when you were sixteen?
It’s still immensely sad that a great opportunity has been wasted: Chris Lewis could have been a fantastic role model, and the effects might have been felt way beyond sport. Instead the reverse has happened, and he’ll now have many years in prison to review what has happened, with uncertain consequences. But…he’s still only 41, and maybe he’ll be free in seven years or so with a chance of doing something to redress the balance. And we really need for this to happen. This bunch of touring West Indians aren’t going to have Britain’s black youngsters flocking to the nets in emulation of their heroes. And I wonder if Messrs Gayle & co. will consider that when they pocket their appearance money after today’s miserable display?
