I found this article at the website of a Jamaican newspaper pretty fascinating. The author, sociologist Peter Espeut, argues that the Caribbean nations made the decision to spend billions of dollars they couldn’t really afford to host this year’s Cricket World Cup because it was an opportunity to make a "a Caribbean-wide ‘macho’ statement." He writes:
[Cricket] was always more than just a game. The English ruling class, the most successful colonisers in world history, invented it, and invested in its intricacies all the nuances of class and ethnic superiority. To win at cricket was proof not only of skill, but of the presence of something much more important: they called it ‘character’, a sign of an advanced state of culture, personal human development and civilization. You show ‘character’ when you play ‘correctly’, when you don’t wilt in the face of intimidation and pressure, when you keep plugging away on a sticky wicket, always trying new strategies; when you go for the jugular while being gracious in victory. As much as anything else, cricket is a mental game, where superior psychology can make the difference between teams of similar talent.
For the West Indies to be beaten by the English was to confirm our subjugate status. To regularly beat the English at their own game was to assert our self-worth, our coming of age; our readiness as a people for self-determination and self-government.
If the truth be told, cricket also has to do with the assertion of masculinity. One of the tasks of colonialism was to castrate the subjugate male: to take his freedom, his women and his potency, to make him feel less of a man. To beat the English was a strong statement of virility, almost equivalent to marrying a white wife; the cricket bat is a potent phallic symbol! To lose at cricket was almost a challenge to the masculinity of the Caribbean man. Cricket is not just a game; Cricket is life!
Also, just in case you’re really curious, here’s an article from the West Indian Times about the role that cricket has played in the last few decades in Jamaican politics. Former prime minister Michael Manley, for example, is the author of "A History of West Indies Cricket," and current prime minister Portia "Sista P" Simpson-Miller is a liberal deployer of cricket terminology in her political speeches.
This dynamic will come as no surprise to natives or students of former colonies or occupied nations, but it’s still a bit counterintuitive-seeming to most Americans, I think. It’s sort of like if baseball, forty years from now, were the national sport of Iraq, and all of the major politicians were huge baseball fans and ex-ball players. Actually, now that I think about it, that’s basically what happened in Japan after we dropped a few nukes on them.
