For decades, writers and watchers across the world documented the decline of West Indies cricket. Let the record speak. Let the scapegoating stop.
By Marlon Bute
The struggles of West Indies cricket are not a recent phenomenon. For more than a decade before 2020, regional and international media were chronicling a team in persistent decline. These voices did not waver or pause. They spoke with urgency, clarity, and frustration. What follows is curated evidence. Headlines and quotations from newspapers and journals to prove that the challenges we face now were plainly visible years ago.
This is not analysis. This is testimony. The world saw it. The world said it. The record is public.
What the Headlines Said
1. “What Happened to the Windies?” — The Guardian (UK), 2007
2. “King Calls Time on Windies” — The Guardian, 2007
3. “Dwindling Windies Support Reflects a Great Cultural Change” — The Guardian, 2007
4. “Cozier Fears Terminal Decline in West Indies” — ESPNcricinfo, c. 2007
5. “Decline and Fall” — ESPNcricinfo, 2007
6. “The New, Quieter Caribbean” — ESPNcricinfo, 2012
7. “West Indies’ Downward Spiral in the 2000s” — ESPNcricinfo, 2009
8. “Rays of Hope in a Decade of West Indian Decline” — ESPNcricinfo, 2009
9. “Soaring in the 1980s, Slumping in the 2000s” — ESPNcricinfo, 2013
10. “The Rot in West Indies Cricket” — Stabroek News, 2013
11. “The Slow Death of West Indies Test Cricket” — CricketCountry, 2016
12. “The Gradual Decline of West Indian Cricket Is Hardly a New Phenomenon” — CricketWindies, 2017
13. “From Calypso Kings to Crisis Mode” — Cricbuzz, 2018
14. “The Sad Decline of West Indies Cricket” — The Economist, 2015
15. “Gone with the Windies” — The Economist, 2015
16. “The West Indies Will Not Again Be a Cricket Giant” — The Economist, 2019
17. “The Sad Demise of West Indies Cricket” — Firstpost, 2016
18. “Can West Indies Reclaim Its Cricketing Glory?” — The Guardian, 2019
19. “Losing the Heritage — Falling Out of Love with Cricket” — ResearchGate, 2019
20. “No One Can Doubt Maladministration Also to Blame for Decline” — Stabroek News, 2015
21. “Three West Indies Players Decline to Travel for England Test Series” — The Guardian, 2020
22. “West Indies Home with Heads High as England Prepare Pace…” — The Guardian, 2020
23. “A Sobering First Day for Struggling West Indies” — The Guardian, 2007
24. “Pollard Bemoans Sad Day for West Indies Cricket” — ESPNcricinfo, 2020
What the Record Said
“In the 2000s, West Indies went further and faster down the slippery slope they started on the decade before, as infighting, apathy and instability came to reign.”
— ESPNcricinfo, 2009
“West Indies had a 53–13 win‑loss record. In their last 99, it is 16–53. That, in a nutshell, shows how steep the decline has been.”
— ESPNcricinfo, 2013
“Between March 1976 and March 1995, the West Indies won 71 and lost only 20. Since June 2000, they have won 14 and lost 80.”
— The Economist, 2015
“Being an amateur, Cozier was always first and foremost on the side of the fans. Ostracized by bureaucrats who have reduced cricket in the West Indies to a permanent state of embarrassment.”
— The Independent, 2016
“Cricket is the number one game. It is the glue which holds the West Indies together. Now that glue has loosened.”
— The Guardian, 2007
“It is to remind the West Indian cricketing public that this tragedy has been in the works for at least two decades. Unless corrective action is taken, West Indian cricket can go into irreversible decline.”
— Stabroek News, 2015
Let Us Now Bring the Matter Home
For there are some — some with loud voices and familiar platforms — who would have the region believe that all that has befallen West Indies cricket has arrived under one man’s watch. That the stumblings of decades have been delivered by one set of hands.
They would attempt to heap coals — burning coals — upon the head of Dr. Kishore Shallow.
It is not criticism they offer. Criticism is healthy. Criticism is necessary. But what they serve is something else. A campaign. A performance. A deliberate distortion.
It is not cricket that is being discussed. It is not the fortunes of a team. It is not accountability. It is something far more cynical and self-serving.
And it ought to be named for what it is. Unfair. Untruthful. And ultimately, unhelpful to the future of West Indies cricket.
The problems of today were the problems of yesterday.
The evidence has spoken.