From liberation to neoliberalism Race, mobility, and masculinity in Caribbean cricket

As a tool of anti-colonial resistance, cricket exemplified the possibility of freedom from the yoke of colonial power, a phase of cricket in Caribbean history that is often described as “liberation cricket”. This quest for liberation that historically defined young people’s desire to excel in cricket just as West Indies’s cricketing success on the world stage has actively stimulated and fuelled the rise of nationalist self-consciousness and the quest for independence. In Trinidad and Guyana, the two Caribbean countries with sizeable people of Indian and African origins living side-by-side, Indo-Caribbean people often point to a long running race-based policy of their exclusion from West Indies cricket. The social organization of cricket in Trinidad reflected the widespread race and class-based societal inequalities and mobility. While Trinidadian cricket club managers pride themselves on having the only domestic league in the Caribbean, they also recognize that players cannot support themselves solely as cricketers.