The untold story of West Indies cricket legend Alvin Kallicharran
By Rohan Kallicharran in an asrticle on the site http://www.cricketcountry.com
I was seven years old when I heard the news, and it devastated me to the core. We would not be going to Australia for Christmas to see dad because he would not be there. I wondered if he had broken his finger again, the one broken earlier in the year which caused him to miss the 1980-81 series against England. Then again, he had played today against Lancashire, so he could not have broken it.
Alvin Isaac Kallicharran has never written an autobiography. Now aged 62, and some two decades on from his retirement, I very much doubt that he will. It is a shame in many respects, for I suspect that it would have made good reading, and over these next few years, there are many things that I would like to discuss with him.
I think it was Christopher Martin-Jenkins, who once said, that it was bizarre that someone as jovial as Kalli, had been caught up in so much controversy. He was correct on both counts; dad was indeed a very jovial and likeable man, but he had found himself at the centre of a few controversial moments:
Being run out in bizarre circumstances by Tony Greig in Port-of-Spain in 1974, only to be reinstated to prevent a possible riot (it was mentioned ‘just a few’ times after the Ian Bell incident at Trent Bridge).
· Agreeing to join Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, then withdrawing, and captaining a sub-strength West Indies side during this period.
· Agreeing to play in South Africa in 1981-82, and subsequently being banned from representing the West Indies again.
As a seven year old, I did not understand the nuances of politics, be they in or outside the sporting arena. What I did not like is that we were no longer part of the West Indies ‘family’ – the family amongst which I had grown up. What I was numb to was the fact that the old man would, as usual, be flying out of the country in September, not to return until March, leaving me in tears at Heathrow’s Terminal 3 – an annual ritual.
What I did not understand was the explanation that the flight to Johannesburg would take 13 hours because we had to fly around the coast of Africa, over the Atlantic Ocean; South African Airways was banned from flying in the airspace of most African nations.
I did not understand why I was suddenly banned from answering the telephone at home, something that I had always done, and did not understand why there were men with cameras everywhere we looked. After all, why would newspaper men be near our house, not to mention extra security after death threats. I did not understand the utter turmoil and heartache through which my father went in first declining, and then eventually accepting a contract to spend the 1981-82 winter playing cricket for Transvaal in South Africa.
Of course, I did not know how let down he felt when Clive Lloyd lacked even the decency to tell him to his face that he would not be in the touring party to Australia that winter. After all, he had every opportunity to do so on that day mentioned above when Lancashire visited Edgbaston in August 1981. Moreover, Kalli had batted for a fair while, making 51 and showing Lloyd that he was in good form, despite his absence from the Warwickshire side for much of the season – surely he had a moment between overs to mention that he was dropped!
After 66 Test matches and close to 4,500 runs, essentially staying loyal to West Indian cricket and being captain during the Packer period, Kallicharran was being jettisoned at the age of 32. It left a bitter taste in the mouth of many, particularly the Indo-Caribbean (Asian) communities of Guyana and Trinidad.
Warwickshire refused Kallicharran permission to attend his father’s funeral
There were several opinions banded about, predominantly that the side that went to Packer had bonded as a unit, and that Kalli had become separate from that very unit. I always found that unlikely, given that many of those same players continued to spend great amounts of time at our house during the English domestic season. Ironically, Kallicharran would have gone to Packer, but for the quite abhorrent behaviour of those in charge at Warwickshire County Cricket Club at the time, who said that they would withdraw his employment, and in doing so any support for his ongoing application for British Citizenship. At that time I, at four years old, was the only British subject in the family through birth. This, for the record, is the same Warwickshire County Cricket Club, who refused my father permission to attend his father’s funeral in Guyana, despite him being injured at the time during the 1988 season.
The other, less likeable, but equally plausible opinion, was that senior figures within West Indian cricket wanted a side made up solely of black West Indian cricketers. It should be noted that Faoud Bacchus remained in the 1981-82 side that toured Australia, but he would be dropped after that tour, and amongst those that went to South Africa the following winter.
In fairness to the authorities, it must be noted that Bacchus was dropped with an average of 26 over 19 Test Matches, somewhat more palatable than the omission of Kallicharran, recognised still at that point amongst the best in the world. Of further interest is the fact that no other player of Indian origin would represent the West Indies until Shivnarine Chanderpaul in 1994.
I have always defended the West Indian selectors and powers that be against that accusation. So strong were the West Indies during that period that Kallicharran was, in my opinion, the only of the Indo-Caribbean players who could stake any claim to a place in that side. When all is said and done, it is my belief that the West Indies team of that era is the greatest of all time, and only the very best were ever going to break into it.
One also has to consider the socio-political influences of the time, especially in Guyana, home to a large Indo-Caribbean population. They felt that they were being victimised by the government, dictatorship as some saw it, of Linden Forbes Burnham. So when they suddenly had no Indians in the Test side, question and opinion was inevitable, and many believed there to be an agenda around race. The dropping of Alvin Kallicharran, however, was widely considered to be a slight to the Indian community, and I know of many who found it difficult to support the West Indies with none their own players present.
“Fire in Babylon” has no mention of Kallicharran or Kanhai!
It did interest me, however, more recently, that the newly-released film, Fire In Babylon, made no mention of Kallicharran or Kanhai before him. It focused purely on the politically driven force of a black West Indian team, and the shame of those that went to South Africa. It is a film that successfully documents the brilliance of West Indian cricket during that period, but focuses on African pride. A simple celebration of ‘West Indian pride’ would to me have been more appropriate.
I read another article in the Jamaica Gleaner where it talks about another brilliant West Indian batsman, Lawrence Rowe, who would captain the Rebel Tourists in South Africa in 1982-83 and 1983-84. Quite frankly it saddens me that an editorial from a newspaper that once boasted the talents of Tony Becca, the doyen of cricket scribes in the Caribbean, could sink to such levels of imbalance.
Rowe has, during the recent Test match against India at Sabina Park, had a stand named after him. How convenient and how strange, perhaps, that he should choose this week, to apologise for going to South Africa! Why now after close to 30 years? It reeks of coercion. The bottom line is that Rowe had nothing to apologise for, neither did Kallicharran or any of the others who embarked upon that tour.
In the case of Kallicharran, the West Indian Cricket Board (WICB) had asked him for an apology as early as 1983, saying that he could then be selected for the side and the life ban lifted. The fact was that Kallicharran was in sublime form for that three-year period, and consistently made his point to the West Indian cricketing fraternity, destroying the likes of Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner in the domestic game, scoring more runs in that period even than the likes of Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards. He refused then, and I would hope that he would refuse now.
I take great umbrage with the statement that these men simply ‘sold out to the rand’ and that they just ‘went for money’. Do not get me wrong, I am not naive, and for each and every one of these players, money was a key aspect. However, Kallicharran was not the only player to be mistreated by West Indian cricket, and nothing seems to have changed to this day if we look at the constant wrangling of players with the WICB. The simple fact is that they had to make a living, and the West Indies was not about to provide it.
Were they all aware of quite how bad apartheid was? No, I do not think that they were. In fact, nobody could understand apartheid fully unless they lived it. Apartheid was odious, one of the worst abuses of civil liberty in history. Their presence did not mean that they supported it. Did they think that they could make a difference? Not necessarily, I think that financial survival and stability was the motivating reason. However, these men became heroes in the townships and more surprisingly the darlings of a white South African audience.
Let us make one thing clear at this point, this was NOT the same as the English or Australian rebel tours; this was quite a different matter. The Anti-apartheid campaigners saw it as more significant, as a bigger betrayal by a group of blacks. However, most of them were so focused, they did not see the hope that this group of men could bring to the townships. This is in no way to belittle the brave, selfless work of those who fought against Apartheid.
Again, no player in that squad was ever going to think for a minute that he could end apartheid, but many took their greatest joy in getting into the townships and coaching, and this was part of a growing momentum in South Africa. These men probably did not realise that they would be treated as outcasts in their homelands. They truly were, and for most of them, the only refuge was England.
Even over this, I have read so many inaccuracies over time, including one post that said that Kallicharran settled in England after the South Africa tours. Actually, we had been living here since 1972.
Others have said that those playing county cricket were particularly culpable for going to South Africa when they were on comfortable salaries in England. I love how ignorance and naivety is bliss. This was before the days of Sky Television, and I will happily reveal that in his final season at Warwickshire, some several years later in 1990, Alvin Kallicharran was on a basic salary of just over £11,000.
There are times when I wish that my father had not gone to South Africa, for I believe that he would have been soon recalled to the West Indian side, cementing his place as one of the true legends of the game.
However, I also saw the good that he did there. He was thrown out of a white-only burger bar in Rosebank and he received many death threats, but he still continued to engage with the Asian and Black communities. It was not just that he engaged the oppressed minority, but he was himself engaged by others who had previously not spent time with any race other than their own.
We always invited the black workers in our complex over for dinner. Their pride did not want handouts, it wanted change, and we were not naive enough to think that we could provide it our own, but we were determined to do our bit, and to live with common decency.
Through the time that we spent in South Africa, we met some of the most wonderful people who did not have a racist bone in their body. However, they did not make the rules. Certainly, no side that Kallicharran played for in South Africa would drop him because he was Asian and not black.
Did he go for the money? Of course he did; he had to pay the bills just like every other person in the country. Did he go purely for the money? Anyone who thinks so can have a laugh at someone else’s expense.
When Warwickshire were so repugnant in their behaviour, he supported his family. When West Indies treated him with the contempt, he again supported his family.
These men were all guilty of an element of naivety. They were all guilty of seeking the Rand. However, what they had in common were sets of circumstances brought about in several cases by the West Indian Cricket Board, and a need to put food on their tables. I genuinely think that they could all have gone to places other than South Africa, and it would have been more suitable, and certainly not had the impact on so many lives that it has.
If they betrayed their own people, it is something with which they have had to live for the rest of their lives. They certainly owed nothing to West Indian cricket, who have of course more recently shown that little has changed, with ongoing disputes with senior players.
However, what most of them did was do what was necessary to support those that they loved. For that, Rowe or any other of that team, there is no apology necessary. We all make choices, and we all live by them.
As a writer, I should make it clear that I am West Indian first and above all. Whether I am of Asian or African heritage means nothing to me. My source of power and pride is that of being a West Indian, a small group of nations that has achieved so much success in the sporting arena and beyond. My personal view is that the Rebel tours to South Africa could and should have been prevented and avoided. However, I also respect the right of individuals to make a living, especially those who have so evidently been mistreated by the authorities in their own country. I feel that this is a story which has two sides, but only one has ever been told, and that has been the motivation behind this piece of work.
