Fire in Babylon

My husband is from Trinidad and I got him this for Christmas. He grew up in Trinidad during the times that are described in this book and was absolutely thrilled with it!! Not only did he read it immediately cover to cover, but he'd suggested it to multiple expat Trini friends!!

As a child born in Yorkshire in the mid-70s I grew up with cricket: playing, watching and everything to do with the game. I admired loads of cricketers - they were real heroes to me and seemed like supermen. When the touring teams played England the one I really loved was the West Indies- they were absolutely invincible, but unlike some of the other dominant international teams they seemed to play with a great spirit of fun and enjoyment. In my mind, there was never a boring session - there would be wickets from highly skilled, genuine quick bowlers, quite unlike any bowlers in any other international team, or bucketloads of runs scored with aggressive, exciting play. If any England player succeeded against them, it was an amazing achievement and a cause for great celebration. They just seemed to play the game a different way to everyone else. In the playground when talking about imaginary world XIs, there were always loads of West Indians - anyone else had to be a superstar to survive in that company. In that era, unlike any team I can remember since, they had no weak links in the chain. The Australians of the 90s, the next dominant team, seemed inferior in all aspects of the game (except spin bowling!) and even they always seemed to have a player or two who didn't cut it quite like their best. To me, those West Indians of the 80s would have beaten any team ever, and by miles. England getting a draw against these guys was a cause of major celebration.I was in my late teens when the seemingly endless production line started to dry up and it was only then that I began to wonderwhy so many greats were at their peak at the same time. Although I suppose it was obvious really, it never occurred to me that my heroes came from countries (not even one country) with small populations, very few cricketers in total, and poor facilities compared to those I was aware of in England.It never crossed my mind that it was doubly difficult to produce any sort of team from the West Indies - it was just a fact to me that they always had all the best players. Then there was the question of race - it never occurred to me that racial prejudices and the racial baggage of the history of the Carribean could be such a burden both to the team as a whole and to individual members of it. As a naïve white child who had never experienced anything of the sort, I couldn't see how you could do anything but admire the likes of Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Clive Lloyd, Malcolm Marshall and their colleagues. They were the greatest and they were true sportsmen in the general sense - they played with style, skill, flair and a sense of enjoyment - how could anyone not love them like me?This book examines the phenomenon of that team over a period of decades. It looks insightfully at almost every influence on that team, positive and negative, at that time. The sociological background provides an interesting backdrop to the cricket, but manages to avoid some of the clichés and stereotypes that are sometimes associated with this kind of historical sports writing. Lots of major incidents, some of which I had either forgotten or been unaware of are examined in detail (World Series Cricket and its impact on the game, which was dominated by the best West Indians and Australians; the West Indian rebel tour of South Africa which featured some of the top players - with hindsight a remarkable phenomenon given the obvious racial overtones, the profusion of West Indians in county cricket etc.) All of these are examined objectively, intelligently and unjudgementally, quite a skill for a writer dealing with emotive issues and moral implications. One of the strengths of the book is that it draws on lots of interviews, both with the players and also those who watched them and were living through the realities of that time, not just in the Carribean or the immigrant communities in England, but also aboriginal and white Australians and South Africans. The research has been meticulous, and there are regular and extended interviews with Lloyd, Richards, Michael Holding, Ian Chappell, Andy Roberts, Colin Croft and Alvin Kallicharran amongst others, as well as with less celebrated members of the West Indian touring party of South Africa, many of whom suffered sad decline and ostracism on their return.In all, this was a fascinating insight into the team, the period and the lives of the stars that formed such a happy part of my childhood. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in cricket or 20th century history and the influence of colonialism in the post-colonial world. Outstanding.

This is a wonderful book. As the companion piece to the (stunning) documentary of the same name, it details the rise to prominence of the West Indies team of the late 1970s and 1980s. During this time and fired by the injustice of low payment and a patronising international view of them as 'calypso cricketers' and 'entertainers', they rose from being bullied by the 1974 Australians to become one of THE great teams in sports history, combining breathtaking batting and (of course) the most destructive set of fast bowlers that has ever, and probably will ever, be seen.However, Lister's work is more than that. It is a chronicle of the role of cricket in the history of the West Indies and its people during the Twentieth Century, both for the people who stayed at home and those who settled in England. It harks back to the days of Learie Constantine and the trail blazers of the early 20th century, including lesser known figures, such as Athneal Olliverre. It covers in detail the particular difficulties of the West Indians who travelled to Apartheid-era South Africa, intelligently portraying the difficult calls that they had to make, and avoiding simplistic judgement.This sounds pretentious, but it isn't. This stuff matters. The issues of race, prejudice and cultural pride echo through the pages. Cricket provided a way for the West Indians to respond to the absurd sense that they were somehow inferior or subservient to whites and the great players were role models for millions of people.This is also a serious sports book. There is detailed coverage of a number of series, and proper analysis of the different strengths and weaknesses of the major players, with the comparison of the captaincy styles of Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards being hugely insightful. Likewise, Lister does not duck some of the more unsavoury incidents, including the poor behaviour of the WI team in New Zealand in 1980, when they responded petulantly to the local umpiring, or the extreme competitiveness of Colin Croft, who, when asked why he did not enquire about the health of a batsman that he had hit, responded (rather brilliantly): "I don't know anything about doctoring. I can't fix him. Call a doctor".The quality of the writing is breath-taking: when Lister talks about the beauty of Michael Holding's bowling, or the almost unwatchable battering that was given to Tony 'make them Grovel' Greig's 1976 England Team, or the aura of Richards, Fire In Babylon is as good a pure sports book as I can recall reading.The scope of research and the level of interviewing is faultless. Even Trevor Nelson, not always the most insightful commentator, is fascinating. All of the major characters (both from the West Indies sides and their opponents) are interviewed, along with heavy-hitting 'talking heads', including VS Naipaul and Trevor Phillips.Stunning.

A very good analysis of West Indies cricket history developed over the last 70 years from weakness' to excellence. It takes a look how fast bowling was developed to produce a world class team which led to the world cricketing media attacking this developed approach. It also placed the team in a cultural context and the writer does a great job doing that with great quotes. If you want to understand West Indies cricket history then I recommend this bookTony Laforce, London

In this meticulously researched and beautifully written book, Simon Lister explains how the West Indies developed from being an entertaining but inconsistent group of individual 'calypso cricketers' into a team that dominated world cricket for two decades. While Clive Lloyd sits at the heart of transformation, Lister also outlines the individual stories of Richards, Greenidge, Holding, Roberts and others and sets their stories within cricket's changing landscape (particularly Packer's World Series) as well as the historical context of the West Indies and of West Indians in the UK.Having previously read Lister's book 'Supercat' - an authorised biography of Lloyd, I was keen to see if he could be as entertaining and informative covering a much bigger canvas. And while Supercat is a very good book, Fire in Babylon is in another class.It has been shortlisted (one of six books) for the William Hill sports book of the year and and with good reason. For those like me that grew up aspiring to be England's Viv Richards, it is fascinating to understand the stories of each of these West Indian heroes. I had no idea, for example, that the people of Antigua collectively funded King Viv's first trip to the UK and that he honed his skills at Alf Gover's cricket school near the Oval in South London.But the book ranges over so much more than the personal experiences and views of the players, it explains the social and geographical differences between the West Indian islands, as well as the inherent racism of the UK in the '70s and '80s (something which this white school-boy failed to appreciate at the time) and how this fearsome cricket team came to be a totem for many of the first and second generation West Indian immigrants in the UK. Each win the team enjoyed in the 'blackwash' of England in 1976 following Tony Greig's infamous 'grovel' remark enabled West Indians from all islands to hold their heads a bit higher in the UK.Lister doesn't duck the fact that the team could occasionally cross the line between awesome and awful. Not in the quality of the cricket they played but in their behaviour. Most notable here is the New Zealand tour of 1979-1980. Michael Holding kicking over the stumps when a decision didn't go his way, Colin Croft barging into the (New Zealand) umpire, and the team refusing to take the field for a period until an umpire was removed are all dealt with in detail.This is a tremendous book. If you remember the great West Indies team with fondness and miss the characters that were a part of it. If you are interested in the history of the West Indies. Or, indeed, if want to understand more about the recent history of the UK through the eyes of West Indians at the top and bottom of the pile, you really should read this book.

I came to this book having seen the documentary film of the same name. The book covers much of the same territory, ranging a bit wider in terms of historical context perhaps. Light is thrown on the way the game was organised run in the Caribbean and the challenges faced by players from differing backgrounds. The detail on matters such as the brutally divisive rebel tours to South Africa is fascinating, but it is the words of the players and of ordinary West Indians themselves that really elevate this work to be excellent social history as well as a fine addition to the pantheon of cricket books.