"It's time for the other side to bat now" is a comment often heard in the West Indies and indicates both a decision. Typically, such remarks signify a desire for change and may well presage - even well before election day - a change of government or of the incumbent (or incumbents) in office.
The phrase is used in many contexts and is seldom qualified by making reference to its origin, of course, is the game of cricket - the dominant sport in the English-speaking Caribbean.
The common use of cricket "lingo " in everyday speech is an indication of how deeply the game - together with its mores and values - has permeated the sociocultural matrix of the region. Indeed, that matrix can probably be most meaningfully understood by understanding the central role played by cricket at all levels - from dusty little matches in the countryside or on urban side streets to nail-biting international Test matches - in these disparate islands.
What, then, does cricket really mean to the peoples of the anglophone Caribbean?
The game means, first of all, enjoyment. That enjoyment results in a pure and unadulterated form for players, spectators, television viewers, and radio listeners alike, from communal participation in, and mastery of, what is basically an arcane rite of passage.
This communal participation, however, did not precede mastery of the skills and spirit of the game. That mastery first became apparent in the 1950 West Indian cricket tour of England with the West Indian victory (by 326 runs) over England at Lord's Cricket Ground (the "holy of holies" of English and international cricket) in London. For the first time, the West Indies team outbatted, outbowled, outthought, and outplayed their mentors in a clear and unequivocal display of dominance.
The lively Caribbean approach to the game, both among players and spectators, literally exploded onto the international scene. The quality of play was impressive enough, but it was the noisy, joyous audience of London-based West Indian immigrants, playing steel drums and singing calypsos, that both stunned and entranced staid English cricket spectators and brought gaiety and relief to postwar Britain. Dramatically, an expression of Caribbean character was forever imprinted on the game - a game that had done so much to mold that character in the first place. Somewhat ironically, that impact masked, rather than highlighted, the Caribbean mastery of what had previously been a predominantly English and Australian mystery.
Even then, enjoyment was the key. The calypso "Cricket, Lovely Cricket!" immortalized the Lord's victory: "They gave the crowds lots of fun; second Test, the West Indies won." Victory, of course, both enhanced and popularized that enjoyment. Indeed, it was then that cricket started becoming the source, par excellence, of popular enjoyment in the English-speaking Caribbean.
The enjoyment increased with growing West Indian domination of international Test cricket. That domination facilitated Caribbean use of cricket as a vehicle for both political and sociocultural liberation. Here, at long last, was a level on which West Indians could deal with the English overlords as
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