Saturday 29 October 2011

Of Mice & Men, Heaven & Hell


The murder of Mohammar Quaddafi in Libya, followed by the suicide of a young soldier in Barbados, made me retreat into that dark place in my mind this week. A place I had not visited since my teenage, “trying to find myself”, days. I knew then that I needed order and discipline in my life or I could easily had made some wrong decisions. So, as soon as I left school I joined the military. That decision saved my life and the rest as they say, is history. I still believe the military is the ultimate way of life for a young person to gain insights into who they are and to realize what they are capable of achieving. And, unless things have changes drastically since my time there, it is the perfect environment to face and overcome all life’s challenges. Therefore you could understand my confusion about the tragic incident occurring at BDF Headquarters.

In my somewhat morbid state of mind this week, I started to examine the reasons that man behaves the way he does. Is it a part of our psychological make up? Is man’s inhumanity to man and ultimately himself, a result of a pre-programmed disposition toward self-destruction that forms part of our DNA? Or is this the result of demons as espoused by Education Minister Ronald Jones in Barbados and Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner in Trinidad. (Maybe it is a football thing).

To a casual observer, life in Libya under Qaddafi was as good as it gets.

1. There is no electricity bill in Libya; electricity is free for all its citizens.

2. There is no interest on loans, banks in Libya are state-owned and loans given to all its citizens at 0% interest by law.

3. All newlyweds in Libya receive $60,000 Dinar (US$50,000 ) by the government to buy their first apartment.

5. Education and medical treatments are free in Libya. Before Qaddafi only 25% of Libyans were literate. Today the figure is 83%.

6. Should Libyans want to take up a farming career, they would receive farming land, a farming house, equipments, seeds and livestock to start their farms – all for free.

7. If Libyans cannot find the education or medical facilities they need in Libya, the government funds them to go abroad for it – $2, 300/mth accommodation and car allowance.

8. In Libyan, if a Libyan buys a car, the government subsidized 50% of the price.

9. 0% unemployment.

Heaven.

If we accept the above is true, we are forced to ask the question. “How come the people of Libya were celebrating in the streets after the brutal murder of the man that created that standard of living for them?”

One train of thought is that despite all the perks, the people were not free to determine their own destiny.
Does the human animal have a need to be free even if freedom will result in them working harder and experiencing more hardships? If this is so, it will definitely explain the reason that Adam and Eve gave up utopia for the taste of an apple.

I pondered, “Is this only a human trait or did the creator instill this nuance into every living creature?”

I then stumbled upon the work of Mr. Calhoun.

John B. Calhoun
In 1972, John B. Calhoun detailed the specifications of his Mortality-Inhibiting Environment for Mice: a practical utopia built in the laboratory. Every aspect of Universe 25—as this particular model was called—was designed to cater for the well-being of its rodent residents and to increase their lifespan. The Universe took the form of a tank, 101 inches square, enclosed by walls 54 inches high. The first 37 inches of wall was structured so the mice could climb up, but they were prevented from escaping by 17 inches of bare wall above. Each wall had sixteen vertical mesh tunnels—call them stairwells—soldered to it. Four horizontal corridors opened off each stairwell, each leading to four nesting boxes. That means 256 boxes in total, each capable of housing fifteen mice. There was abundant clean food, water, and nesting material. The Universe was cleaned every four to eight weeks. There were no predators, the temperature was kept at a steady 68°F, and the mice were a disease-free elite selected from the National Institutes of Health’s breeding colony.

Heaven.

Four breeding pairs of mice were moved in on day one. After 104 days of upheaval as they familiarized themselves with their new world, they started to reproduce. In their fully catered paradise, the population increased exponentially, doubling every fifty-five days. Those were the good times. To its members, the mouse civilization of Universe 25 must have seemed prosperous indeed. But its downfall was already certain—not just stagnation, but total and inevitable destruction. As the name Universe 25 suggests, it was not the first time Calhoun had built a world for rodents. He had been building Utopian environments for rats and mice since the 1940s, with thoroughly consistent results. Heaven always turned into hell.

Others argued that population growth would cause our demise by exhausting our natural resources, leading to starvation and conflict. But there was no scarcity of food and water in Calhoun’s universe. The only thing that was in short supply was space and hence freedom. This was, after all, “heaven”—a title Calhoun deliberately used with pitch-black irony.

So what exactly happened in Universe 25? Past day 315, population growth slowed. More than six hundred mice now lived in Universe 25, constantly rubbing shoulders on their way up and down the stairwells to eat, drink, and sleep. Mice found themselves born into a world that was more crowded every day, and there were far more mice than meaningful social roles, (jobs). With more and more peers to defend against, males found it difficult and stressful to defend their territory, so they abandoned the activity. Normal social discourse within the mouse community broke down, and with it the ability of mice to form social bonds. The failures and dropouts congregated in large groups in the middle of the enclosure, their listless withdrawal occasionally interrupted by spasms and waves of pointless violence. The victims of these random attacks became attackers. Left on their own in nests subject to invasion, nursing females attacked their own young. Procreation slumped, infant abandonment and mortality soared. Lone females retreated to isolated nesting boxes on penthouse levels. Other males, a group Calhoun termed “the beautiful ones,” never sought sex and never fought—they just ate, slept, and groomed, wrapped in narcissistic introspection. Elsewhere, cannibalism, pansexualism, and violence became endemic. Mouse society had collapsed.

On day 560, a little more than eighteen months into the experiment, the population peaked at 2,200 mice and its growth ceased. A few mice survived past weaning until day six hundred, after which there were few pregnancies and no surviving young. As the population had ceased to regenerate itself, its path to extinction was clear. There would be no recovery, not even after numbers had dwindled back to those of the heady early days of the Universe. The mice had lost the capacity to rebuild their numbers—many of the mice that could still conceive, such as the “beautiful ones” and their secluded singleton female counterparts, had lost the social ability to do so. In a way, the creatures had ceased to be mice long before their death—a “first death,” as Calhoun put it, ruining their spirit and their society as thoroughly as the later “second death” of the physical body.

Calhoun had built his career on this basic experiment and its consistent results ever since erecting his first “rat city” on a quarter-acre of land adjacent to his home in Towson, Maryland, in 1947. The population of that first pen had peaked at 200 and stabilized at 150, when Calhoun had estimated that it could rise to as many as 5,000—something was evidently amiss. In 1954, Calhoun was employed by the National Institute of Mental Health in Rockville, Maryland, where he would remain for three decades. He built a ten-by-fourteen-foot “universe” for a small population of rats, divided by electrified barriers into four rooms connected by narrow ramps. Food and water were plentiful, but space was tight, capable of supporting a maximum of forty-eight rats. The population reached eighty before succumbing to the same catastrophes that would afflict Universe 25: explosive violence, hypersexual activity followed by asexuality, and self-destruction.

Is the perception of “freedom” a basic need of all animals. Would we survive only if the illusion of being in control of our own destiny is maintained?

Barbados. 166 square miles of tropical paradise. Free primary, secondary and tertiary education, free health care including free modern Ambulance service. Well trained and equipped Police, Coast Guard and Defence Forces. Ultra modern prison, excellent Fire Service and a hospital that, despite it’s challenges, is still one of the best in the region. There is a stable system of Government, a judiciary free from corruption, an efficient banking system and a freedom to express ones opinion in the press and media. No marauding bands of criminals, no state of emergencies and curfews, no health epidemics.

Heaven.

Yet it is clear that the we are seeing a rise in anti-social behavior in Barbados. Why? Why do we resemble a community experiencing the first stages of the “first death” where the normal tenants of society are beginning to break down?

Is the illusion of being free being overshadowed by the reality of hopelessness brought on by the rising unemployment and escalating disenfranchisement of our people? As we celebrate 45 years of independence, names like DaCosta Mannings, Knights, Super Centre, United Insurance, Roberts Manufacturing, SBI Distribution, Seawell Air Services, Brydens, Barbados National Bank, Trimart, McEnearney Quality, Stokes & Bynoe, Voice of Barbados, Nation Publishing, to name a few, can no longer be described, with pride, as Barbadian.

This week, in my altered mental state, as I looked around Barbados we were beginning to look a lot like Calhoun’s mice.

Quote of the Day

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
(The best laid schemes of Mice and Men
oft go awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!)
Robert Burns, To a Mouse (Poem, November, 1785)
Scottish national poet (1759 - 1796)

Saturday 22 October 2011

Muammar al-Qaddafi - The great Brother Leader of the Revolution.


With a very few exceptions, it seems the world is rejoicings at the murder of Muammar Qaddaffi. The majority has swallowed hook, line and sinker the propaganda of the western media concerning a man who has dedicated his entire live to the concept of a united Africa and the empowering of Black people.

Let me publicly state, without apology, that I am an admirer of Muammar al-Qaddafi. Twenty-five years ago, as a young Officer Cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, I was first made aware of the existence of the man, and for what he stood, after being drawn into a debate between two fellow “overseas cadets”. One was from Saudi Arabia and the other from Ghana and while they had conflicting views about the man,s sometimes eccentric behaviour and controversial ideas, it was obvious that they both respected this young military officer, who at the age of 27 took over the governance of his country.

Over the years I have tried to follow the activities of the man who the western media loved to demonise and vilify. Qaddafi has never wavered in his call for Pan-Arab and Pan-African unity, and ironically, he has never shied away from supporting revolutionary movements. In his term as chairman of the African Union, he, more than any other current leader has been identified with the move towards a United States of Africa. He called for an emergency African Summit of the Organization of African Unity in September of 1999, which led to the formation of the organization of the continental body called the African Union in Durban, South Africa in 2002. Qaddafi’s consistency and determination has actually reignited the movement towards the formation of a United States of Africa that would make Africa richer, stronger, and more peaceful.

In 1975 Qaddafi outlined his political tenets in a document called “The Green Book”. As a result of the deliberately dishonest portrayals of the leader in the controlled media, not much is known regarding Qaddafi’s political thoughts and his guiding ideology. He is described in the media as a dictator, yet in “The Green Book”, Qaddafi outlines the actual governing foundation that supports the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. That foundation is The Third Universal Theory—which upon critical analysis—puts many so-called Western Democracies and Republics to shame.

Although aware of it’s basic ideas for a long time, only after the upheaval in Libya did I seek to read in detail, “The Green Book” . It is broken up into three parts:

Part One: Solution to the Problem of Democracy
Part Two: The Solution to the Economic Problem
Part Three: The Social Basis of the Third Universal Theory


Qaddafi says political decisions in which one candidate is granted victory, simply because they obtained the highest percentage of the vote by the electorate effectively “establishes a dictatorship in the seat of power garbed in the guise of democracy.” Especially when three or four losing candidates, whose votes combined would equal a higher total than the perceived winning candidate, split the vote. You only have to examine the make up of the current Trinidad & Tobago government to understand how coalition governments can be contrived to pervert the spirit of democracy.

He also has an interesting take on the parliamentary governmental structure. The mere existence of such, Qaddafi says, “underlies the absence of the people, for democracy can only exist with the presence of the people, and not in the presence of representatives of the people. Parliaments have become a legal barrier between people and their right to exercise authority. They exclude the masses in order to prevent them from practicing politics, and monopolize the control of politics in their name.”
Proportional representation by political parties and coalitions, such as what exists in Israel and the United States, Qaddafi says, is “rubbish” which only delivers power to the elites of society, and not the masses.
“Under such systems, the people are prey fought over by the predators: instruments of government compete in their power struggle for the votes of the people they in turn neglect and exploit.”

With elections in Barbados due very soon, all right thinking Barbadians need to at least bear in mind what Qaddafi had to say about the behavior of politicians in a democratic system of Government. He states that politicians are guilty of , “mud-slinging tactics to discredit one another. In order to rule, the opposition party must defeat the existing instrument of government. To do so, the opposition must undermine the government’s achievements and cast doubt on its plans, even if these plans were beneficial to society, to prove the incompetence of the current governing instrument. Consequently, the interests and programs of society become victims of the power struggle raging among the political parties.” Is this why we are now struggling with traffic problems in Warrens when the last Government had already started to implement a feasible plan using fly-overs? Is this the reason that taxpayers will be forced to pay tens of millions more for the Pierhead Marina Project when plans were already in place? Regardless of which side of the political divide you stand on. Qaddafi's point is that the system will encourage the existing Government to make rash decisions, not in the best interest of the people ahead of an election and conversely encourage any new administration to gain political mileage by arbitrarily changing any programmes put in place by their predecessors.

Watching partisan bickering occurring between the Democrats and Republicans in the American political system or indeed between the BLP and DLP in Barbados, it is hard to argue with his analysis. He also rightly notes that political parties can be bribed or corrupted by external and internal interests. I will not touch that one at this stage. His solution is direct democracy through the establishment of “People’s Conferences” in which all society members participate in shaping policy. The masses select their administrative leaders who then represent the direct will of the people and are answerable directly to the people. A real system of Constituency Councils without the encumbrances of political parties and Constituency Representatives?

Working & Wages

In Part II of “The Green Book”, he deals with economics, maintaining that, whether a worker received earnings from an individual business owner, or the state, “wage earners are but slaves to the masters who hire them,” Qaddafi writes. “To claim that income from a state-controlled establishment is re-injected into society and thus benefits the workers, as opposed to income from a privately-owned establishment which benefits solely the owner, is a true statement only if the general welfare of the society and private well-being of the workers is taken into account.” Qaddafi appears to question communism while simultaneously redefining socialism. Qaddafi’s solution is to abolish the wage system, which in his view, would “emancipate the human being.” A reversion to the natural law and relationship between workers and employers before stratification based on social class and status became widespread is recommended.
“The exploitation of man by man and the possession by some individuals of wealth exceeding personal needs are manifestations of departure from the natural rule. This signals the beginning of corruption and distortion in the life of the human community and is the beginning of the emergence of the exploitative society.”

Housing

In Qaddafi’s world, related to housing, everyone would have adequate housing for themselves and their families and it should be their own, and not the property of another. “A person living in another person’s house in return for rent, or even without rent, is not a free person.” Relating to income, “there are no wage earners, only partners.”

Vehicles

Relating to vehicles, Qaddafi calls it an “essential need for the individual and the family” and “no person or party may own private means of transportation for the purposes of renting to others, because this represents controlling the needs of others.”

Land Ownership & Farming
Likewise, land is no one’s private property. “Everyone has the right to exploit it for farming or grazing for the duration of his or her life and the lives of their heirs.”

The Rise of the Black Race

Some Black people may be offended in a portion of the book in which Qaddafi states that the Black race is at present in a dire and backward social condition.  "To be offended by the fact that one forthrightly states the Blacks masses are in the worst shape economically, socially and politically as well as suffering all manner of health-related problems, indicates that one has bought into the “post-racial” society proffered by many Black and White liberals, as well as White apologists that represent the wishes of their White masters."  In the section preceding the word written above, he writes of the tragedy of slavery and his prognostication is that, “Now it is the turn of the black race to re-emerge. Black people will prevail in the world,” he writes.

If there is one recurring theme throughout “The Green Book” it is his emphasis on liberation.
The conclusion of “The Green Book” brings to a close his explanation of the Third Universal Theory which, Qaddafi says, is “a harbinger of the final deliverance of the masses from all the constraints of injustices, tyranny, exploitation, and political and economic subordination. It also heralds the advent of all people’s society in which all individuals are free and equal in authority, wealth and arms.”
“The example of the new socialist society is to establish a happy society deriving its happiness from being free. Such a society is realized only through the fulfillment of the individual’s spiritual and material needs, and this can be achieved by liberating these needs from the control and manipulation of others. Satisfaction of needs should be realized without exploitation or enslavement of others.”

Love him or hate him, agree or disagree, history should not be allowed to deny his impact on world affairs and revolutionary movements. Muammar Qaddafi’s legacy should be an admirable one. He should be remembered as a theoretician, and a revolutionary always willing to provide inspiration, monetary and military resources—to aid those fighting for self-determination. That is an honorable legacy to leave behind, and more are needed like him in Africa. He was not perfect and like most leaders did not always practice what he preached but the message he was trying to bring to Africans and black people in general is no less valid. What saddens me is that the majority of Black people all over the world will only know of Qaddafi the “Dictator”.

The reason Muammar Qaddafi was a target is because he has been a thorn in the side of anti-revolutionary forces since he took power in Libya, overthrowing the King and nationalizing the oil industry so that the people could benefit from their oil resources. Libya ‘s Revolution brought free health care and education to the people and subsidized housing. In fact, students in Libya can study there or abroad and the government gives them a monthly stipend while they are in school and they pay no tuition. If a Libyan needs a surgery that must be done overseas, then the government will pay for that surgery. That is more than we in the “free” world can boast. While Libyans enjoy subsidized housing, members of the U.S. military risk foreclosure while they serve their country abroad. Money from oil is directly deposited into the accounts of every Libyan based on oil income. Qaddafi’s revolution believed that it is the responsibility of the government to provide the basic needs of its citizens.

Under Qaddafi. Libya had the highest Human Development Index in Africa and the fourth largest GDP. He must have been doing something right. 99% of the population of Libya is Muslim. The West in their ongoing vendetta against Muslims promoted civil unrest in Libya with the the realization that as long as Muslims are fighting each other they won’t have time to focus on Israel or Palestine; And as for logistics, AFRICOM, the United States military’s Africa Command, was not created for nothing: it was created to deepen the U.S. military presence and control over a Continent rich in oil, land, water and precious minerals, formerly under the control of U.S. allies and now facing aggressive penetration by China. A penetration welcomed by Qaddafi.

I could go on for pages about the issues that other governments had with Qaddafi’s Libya and I will do so at a later date. I will urge all you students of politics, all who value justice and freedom, to read  The Green Book and see for yourself the vision the man had for his people and for Africa. I have attached a link. 
He may had been narcissistic, maybe even a psychopath but no one can deny that he was sincere in his belief that he was doing what was best for his people. It is our duty to never let the world forget the truth about the ideas behind the man the world had been taught to hate. I will finish by saying that the world has lost a visionary. To his supporters and family I say, “ Allāhu Akbar.” Be Strong.

Quotes of the Day

"I am not going to leave this land. I will die as a martyr at the end. I shall remain, defiant. Muammar is Leader of the Revolution until the end of time." Muammar al-Qaddafi


"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty." Abraham Lincoln

Saturday 15 October 2011

Monkey See, Monkey Do....The Politics of Change.


Barbadians should brace themselves for more job losses for the remainder of this year, says Governor of the Central Bank Dr. Delisle Worrell.
He said at least 1 000 jobs were lost between June and September 2011, and indicated that this trend would continue until December.
“It would seem that the trend of job losses will not be turned around until the next coming winter season. Providing that the season lives up to expectations, we should see some turn around,” Worrell told a Press conference on Wednesday to discuss the Review Of The Barbados Economy For The First Nine Months Of 2011 issued Tuesday.


Who is responsible for this state of affairs?


Do we keep blaming the global economy?


Is it still the fault of the former Government?


Almost four years ago, we Barbadians answered to call for change and elected the present administration to run the fiscal affairs of his country. Well, we are definitely seeing change. Change from a stable economy whose policies were lauded internationally, to a economy on the brink of disaster. We are now experiencing an unemployment rate of over 12% and climbing, exasperated by an inflation rate of 7%. And we wonder why Government senators are being attacked in supermarket car parks?



Barbados Statistical Service
Continuous Household Labour Force Survey 
April to June 2011 (Provisional Estimate) 
  • The Unemployment Rate for the 2nd quarter of 2011 stood at 12.1%.  
  • The rate for males now stands at 11.3%, while that of females is 12.8%. 
  • The actual number of Unemployed persons now total 17.6 thousand. 


Let me share with you a behavioural experiment that I heard about a few years ago.


Start with a cage containing five monkeys.
Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.
After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here.


And that, my fellow Barbadians, is how our Government policies are made. 


We have not seen one original thought being offered by our present Government to address any of the issues confronting us. Back in 2008 we elected a cadre of young bright men and women as our leaders with the expectation that they would continue the good work of the previous Government and correct what they had been doing wrong. A few have shown the desire to make a difference, (climb the stairs) but they have all been, "attacked".   I have no idea who was holding the original "cold water spray" but I think it is time our leaders start to realize that they cannot continue doing the same thing over and over and expect different results. The time has come for drastic change to our fiscal policies or we the electorate will be forced to make the change.


Quote of the Day



"Our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter -- that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves."

BARACK OBAMA, speech to joint session of Congress, sep. 9, 2009


Sunday 9 October 2011

T20 - The Future of Cricket.

I was one of those people who thought that T20 cricket was an abomination. I thought it was a watered down version of cricket that would be soon exposed for the impostor that it was. I will now publicly admit, I was wrong!
I will always love Test Cricket and I don't believe that T20 would ever replace it but I am now a T20 fan. 50 over cricket...Watch out!

David Warner
Thanks to ESPN,I have just watched every match of the Nokia Champions League T20 competition held in India and it was some of the most entertaining cricket I have watched in over 40 years of watching cricket.  T20 is here to stay!

We will all agree that Test cricket and one-day internationals require certain abilities. However, the problems arise when we do not recognize that T20 cricket demand an entirely different skill set and that this fact does not make it an inferior game. It requires a special athlete to consistently execute the reverse sweep, the switch hit or the Dilshan scoop against some of the best bowlers in the world. To be a successful batsman in T20 you must have amazing  hand-eye coordination and be able to make split second judgement calls. And spare a thought for the bowler that has to be consistently accurate and even when he is, has to stand helplessly by as his “good delivery” is retrieved from the third level of the stand behind him.  As Sreenath Aravind will attest, it is no easy thing to be hit for 69 runs off 4 overs.

Over the past few days, from Chennai and Bengaluru, I saw cricket performances that made me proud to be a cricket fan. On 04 October, in Chennai,  David Warner executed a remarkable  display of power-hitting. He struck 135 not out off 69 balls against an attack that had four world class bowlers who were good enough to make their country's World Cup teams. Warner was a picture of class. He played recognized cricket shots and he timed the ball beautifully.  Long ago, we as spectators applauded the batman’s ability to leave alone the good ball as readily as we applauded when he dispatched the bad ball to the boundary. We have all watched Sir Gary Sobers and Sir Vivian Richards destroy bowling attacks by consistently depositing good balls over the boundary rope. In recent times Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard have garnered worldwide acclaim by hitting more sixes in an innings that most players hit in their entire careers. We now see this ability being developed in the T20 version of the game. I ask you , is this bad for cricket?

Arun Karthik




Daniel Harris

On 07 October Royal Challengers Bangalore 215 for 8 (Dilshan 74, Kohli 70, Tait 5-32) beat South Australia Redbacks 214 for 2 (Harris 108*, Ferguson 70) by two wickets.   An exhibition of drives, cuts and pulls that raced to the boundary.  Daniel Harris hit 17 boundaries before his first six,  almost all of them shots of class and elegance.  Then, two outstanding talents, Callum Ferguson and Virat Kohli, timed the ball like Carl Hooper and Brian Lara, ran hard between wickets, and deposited balls over the boundary at will.  And when 214 looked like it would be overhauled, Shaun Tait bowled fast and straight and took 5 wickets. In a game where 429 runs came off 40 overs, Arun Karthik produced the six most important runs of his T20 career off the last ball of the match to propel the Royal Challengers Bangalore to victory.  All this drama came down to the last ball, off which six were needed, and Karthik stepped up to smash Daniel Christian into the stands beyond midwicket. The crowd went up as one, players burst into spontaneous celebration. That was a cricket match!!


I would be amiss if I did not mention the man Chris Gayle. Ever smiling, appearing to enjoy his cricket more than I had ever seen him doing in West Indian colours. Easily the most feared batsman in the world of T20 cricket and he maintained that reputation in this tournament. On 03 October, he scored a whirlwind 86 off 46 balls with four 4s and eight 6s with a strike rate of 186.96 against Somerset. On 05 October, he scored 26 off 15 balls with three 6s with a strike rate of 173.33. In the semi-final on 07 October, in a superb display of power hitting, he scored 92 off 41 balls with eight 4s and eight 6s with a strike rate of 224.39. One of these 6s was the biggest for the tournament being hit completely out of the ground. Chris finished the 2011 tournament as the second highest run scorer with 257 from 6 matches and a whopping twenty-four 6s, the most of any player. And, West Indies coach Otis Gibson was quoted as saying that he would not be missed from the West Indies team! Otis, I, a loyal West Indies fan will miss him!

Chris Gayle
In all honesty I would not pick Chris Gayle in my Test team but how can you seriously tell me that he has nothing to offer West Indies in 50 overs or T20? He is one of the most entertaining players in the game and is worth his weight in gold, from a purely commercial point of view, to any team he plays for.

It is becoming more and more obvious that we in the West Indies need to realise that the different forms of cricket needs different mental and technical preparation. I am sure that the technocrats in the other cricketing nations already realise that more and more cricketers will need to specialise in one version of the game in order to become the best they can be. We cannot continue to train test cricketers and expect them to excel at T20. It is now common place for 400 runs to be scored in 40 overs in a 3 hour period. Do we seriously expect these same players to be satisfied with scoring 250 runs in a day's play off of the same bowlers? The odd player will make the transition but the majority will struggle to the detriment of the team. We saw this with the Trinidad & Tobago team in this tournament. Although they performed creditably it was obvious that they lacked the killer instinct a professional T20 team needs. We in the West Indies need to start developing more top level T20 competitions. We may be surprised at the level of talent we might discover. There is big money in good cricket. Consider this; This year's tournament was aired via ESPN in more than 174 territories worldwide. It was telecasted in a record 18 different international languages across the world. If we start working now there is no reason why in 10 years time,we cannot develop the talent in the West Indies to stage a yearly competition to rival the Champions League or the IPL.

Thought for the Day

In 2008 ESPN, paid almost US$1 billion for the global rights to the Twenty20 Champions League, in a ten year deal.