The West Indies

I remember when the West Indies came to England in 1984, because they really messed up my summer. I was at my cricket-obsessed peak at this stage, and I was bursting with pride about the England team. We had the best players in the world - Botham! Lamb! Big Bob Willis! How could we fail?!

Me and my slightly flared cricket trousers waited with breathless anticipation and I rushed off to Old Trafford to see a one dayer. As expected we reduced the Windies to about 80 for 7. This was so easy!

Viv Richards then played the best one-day innings ever, 189 not out, and we lost massively.

Then the Test series, and the Windies smashed us into tiny, humiliating smithereens, played their very loud horns, had the coolest wrist bands and left. 5-0 defeat.

I was left bereft, emotionally crushed, and I also wore a really bad jumper to the School Disco that year and everyone laughed at me very deeply.

It was a low point, to say the least.

*******

But now it's all changed. And I've changed too. West Indies cricket is dying. I am taking no pleasure at all from this present series. I want the West Indies to come back, the magnificent, proud force of old. But they won't. Not without help.

Instead the ICC sit and watch and talk about giving money to Zimbabwean cricket, as though propping up a murderous regime will somehow help develop the game - and as though this is even the point. It makes me so angry the way priorities get mixed up.

West Indies cricket is dying on its feet. The ICC must deal with this, yet they do nothing. People are dying in Zimbabwe every day from a disgusting despot, and our politicians sit and talk, and think only of legacy.