The Development of West Indies Cricket, by Hilary Beckles, constitutes the most important cricket book ever written. The first volume deals with the past of West Indian cricket. The second deals with its present and – having traced the trajectory – its future, and with such perspicacity that the author's analysis has relevance to all other Test countries entering the post-nationalist era, notably England.

The author, is the professor of history at the University of the West Indies and runs the course in cricket studies which is offered there. No dry old stick is he, though, removed from the life around him. Born and initially brought up in Barbados, Hilary Beckles was playing for Warwickshire Schools not 30 years ago as an allrounder, until he batted in the Edgbaston nets against Lance Gibbs and had his off stump knocked out three balls in a row. He refocused his energies on becoming a graduate and postgraduate of history at Hull University before returning to the UWI campus in Barbados, where he was something of an angry radical on his return.

Now in his forties, the vision is clear, balanced and wise. The motivation of cricketers in the 21st century is not a question which as yet greatly concerns Australia, as their players were keen enough to win the World Cup; or South Africa, or Pakistan, whatever their inquiry might think. But it is one which now concerns England and, even further down the line, West Indies, and one to which Professor Beckles has addressed all his knowledge of cricket and of history; and if the language is a little difficult for us non-academics, it is worth batting through the 20s and 30s to reach the plateau of understanding that is a century.

Anyone can see that cricket has had more significance for West Indians than for any other people. In Australia the formation of a national cricket team in the 1870s was the first tangible expression of national consciousness, directed against the Mother Country of course. In the West Indies cricket was all that and more: specially, it was also the first vehicle of popular resistance to colonial rule and of individual black empowerment.

The handful of black professionals in the inaugural West Indian team to tour England in 1900 were, in other words, the first black – as opposed to brown or coloured – West Indians to rise above working-class status, and thereby they pointed the quickest way out of the `ghetto'. The white colonial elite – who, along with British soldiers fighting the French in the Caribbean, were the ones to introduce cricket to the West Indies– would have continued to keep the game to themselves if they had been allowed to: the first inter-territorial matches in the 1890s, between Barbados and Demurrer ( Guyana), excluded all blacks or, in the politically correct terminology of the day, `professionals'.

It was Plum Warner who broke this caste system. The son of Trinidad's attorney-general, he first learnt his cricket by batting against street-boys in his yard in Port-of-Spain, before moving on to Harrow and England. When he returned to the West Indies with Lord Hawke's touring party of 1895–96, he objectively saw how much stronger Trinidad were for including two black fast bowlers, Woods and Cumberbatch. Warner preached selection based on merit not skin, indeed insisted upon it if the inaugural West Indian tour were not to be a waste of time and money. These black chaps, moreover, said Warner, had stronger throwing arms and were better catchers of the ball. The sponsors of the tour – the sugar lobby in England, the West India Committee – were persuaded, and the way was opened.

My only complaint about these two books is that this historical section is not quite so lively as it could have been. If anyone has the means to research early West Indian history, it must be Professor Beckles and his department, and time is precious before the last traces disappear. One source who should be interviewed is Sir Carlisle Burton, a judicial eminence and son of one of the black professionals on the 1900 and 1906 tours of England. The shocking story he tells is that his father was sent home early from the latter tour, with the approval of the sugar lobby, and blackballed forever from playing cricket in the West Indies so that he emigrated. His offence? To refuse to carry the baggage of the white players from game to game.

Beckles terms this phase of West Indian cricket `the first paradigm'. It continued into and through the 1930s when Learie Constantine spoke out in Cricket and I, a book obviously written with the help of CLR James. As Constantine saw it, the white players were not as motivated as the black players in the West Indian team whenever they played against England: to the white players it was `cousin cricket', in which defeat meant little, whereas to the black players, beating England was paramount if they were to advance the cause of political independence. Yet even though the number of white players in the team diminished until they became a small minority, control over administration, and selection remained in the hands of the colonial elite. Their values, indeed, are only now being replaced and updated in the West Indian Cricket Board.

THE SECOND paradigm began when the captain was finally selected on merit: Frank Worrell in 1960. In this phase, which lasted into the 1990s, the West Indian cricket team, almost entirely of African descent, became and continued to be the world champions of Test and one-day cricket. In the process West Indian cricket was at the forefront of the debate about national independence. More than that, as Beckles says, `what West Indian cricket does today, the rest of West Indian society does tomorrow.' The campaign for a black captain, led by James on his return to Trinidad as editor of The Nation, was an integral part of the political and social movement. For West Indies to play and become world champions under a black captain – firstly Worrell– was to demonstrate that the West Indian territories were mature enough to stand on their own feet and be decolonised. However, it should be noted, the best aspects of the first paradigm were incorporated into the second when Gerry Gomez served as Worrell's tour manager and the deposed Gerry Alexander agreed to stay on as vice-captain.

`The most important cricket book ever written': Hilary Beckles (centre, with Gordon Greenidge and Garry Sobers) and his two-volume opus `The Development of West Indies Cricket'

By the captaincy eras of Clive Lloyd and the never-vanquished Viv Richards, West Indian cricket was giving its people even more, such as self-respect they had never been allowed to feel before ` West Indians of African and Asian ancestry came to a closer and firmer cultural perception of their ontological conditions and political mission as a post-colonial people.' Supported at first in most places by socialist movements which emphasised community solidarity and self-sufficiency, and by a new nationalism that emphasised Afro-Indo social solidarity as a political process, West Indian cricketers, starting under Rohan Kanhai and maturing under Lloyd, became virtually invincible between 1978 and 1994. Perhaps the Afro-Indo solidarity was strained by the influence of Black Power or pan-Africanism, but there can be no question about the result: `No Test team in the history of the game has sustained its dominance over such an extended period of time.'

Sign of the times: Carl Hooper brings the Heathrow pay standoff to and end, agreeing terms for West Indies' tour of South Africa Opposite Brian Lara takes questions after the Trinidad Test in March, when WI were bowled out for 51.

The third paradigm or phase, which directly concerns England, is represented by Brian Lara. He is the prototype of the elite cricketers of the 21st century: the one who maximises his income, not with the fees and bonuses from an unworldly Board, but by marketing himself in conjunction with the global capital of multinationals Courtney Walsh is the last major West Indian cricketer of the second paradigm, one who has principally played for love of the game and pride in the people he represents. Lara is the future, and the two began to work successfully together – if not in the World Cup, then in the Test series against Australia when Walsh bowled them out and Lara knocked them off – just as Alexander had with Worrell.

`The liberation of the individual from the dictates of cricket boards and other non-playing officials is the objective of this process of change. Players will require their own agents to represent their financial interests in all negotiations with officials, and the team, as a collective, will be more clearly seen and understood as an aggregation in pursuit of maximum and market returns.' And then some wise words of warning against imposing our own values: `The new paradigm – cricket in the age of globalisation in which cricketers see themselves more as entrepreneurs than as professionals – should not be moralised in terms established during the age of nationalism.'

This development is partly the consequence of modern Caribbean states letting down its youth, including cricketers, by obeying the dictates of North Atlantic financial institutions, notably the IMF. This is not fiery socialism from Beckles, but all too true (see panel): western financial institutions have insisted on such a reduction in public expenditure on social programmes that secondary education is becoming a privilege of the minority in the Caribbean. `The first generation of working-class youth to step into the 21st century … will be doing so against the background of major social and material disadvantages and structural marginalisation.'

The same applies in Britain too, even if the size of the disempowered (mainly unemployed urban youth) is not so proportionately large. And the values of cricket are alien to produce certain mentalities naturally, an institutional intervention should prompt the process by means of a conscious simulation of the future.'

Beckles therefore proposes that the best cricketers, while in their teens, should be enrolled into programmes co-ordinated by the only Caribbean organisation of much practical effect apart from the cricket team: the University of West Indies. They would be designed for people who have had barely any formal education. `By the time each cricketer makes it to the Test arena, he should be competent in the skills necessary for engagement in the era of globalisation. They should all be computer-literate (to help them to analyse the game inter alia), knowledgeable in health and nutrition issues, possessed of communication skills, and of the political sensibilities required for social representation.'

Beckles's dream is that all the Anglophone West Indian countries will reintegrate so as to be more effective in the global economy, rather than pushed around as they are at present, as if they were still colonies; and that West Indian cricketers will be proud to represent such a new society. For English cricket too, it is essential to motivate the players full and make them tick again.

The Development of West Indies Cricket Vols I & II (Pluto Press, 0181 348 2724): also available from Sportspages, price £28.98 plus £3.10 postage and packing

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