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The quite phenomenal reaction to Malcolm Marshall's passing has come as a timely, if sombre, reminder of the status cricket, and great cricketers, retain in the psyche of the unique, cosmopolitan people of the West Indies, particularly of Barbados.

It has also confirmed the eminence in which West Indies cricket, and cricketers, are still regarded outside the confines of these tiny islands for it was not only in the Caribbean that homage was paid.

In Brisbane and Harare, teams of other countries stood in a minutes silence prior to Test matches, a rare and relevant tribute.

At Hampshire, the English county that was Marshall's adopted home, there were hundreds and hundreds of telephone calls suggesting ways to honour his memory. Cricinfo, the games most popular website, reported over 1500 messages of appreciation.

Prime Ministers, presidents and high commissioners have joined the tributes.

Outpouring

Even Malcolm himself, for all his achievements a humble man without the slighest hint of conceit, would have been overwhelmed by such an outpouring. Yet he might have taken comfort from it all as well, since it was confirmation that the unique culture of the game that was his passion remains strong, not least in the West Indies.

There is a general pessimism that our youth relate less and less to a pastime that has been a way of life to earlier generations but is increasingly regarded as an anachronism.

The fear is that they are being beguiled by alien American sport, so seductively and incessantly marketed through satellite television, and by the changing lifestyle of the modern technological age.

There is undoubtedly truth in both concerns but it is often exaggerated, especially at a time when our standards, at all levels, have fallen to depressingly low levels. It has taken the tragically premature loss of one of its finest players to emphasise how much this most complex and stimulating of games still means to us all.

Those filing past the open casket at St. Michaels Cathedral on Friday and attending the funeral service at the gymnasium of the Garfield Sobers Complex yesterday morning were not only aged men, and women, long past their prime, living on memories of a glorious past.

Example set

Hundreds of the solemn faces had, as they say, hardly shed their mothers features. They were schoolboys, and girls, who spoke with feeling about the real meaning of Marshalls life, of the pride he brought to Barbados and the West Indies, of the example he set.

This an era when a disadvantaged background is often blamed for the worrying youthful rebelliousness and when race remains a constant, divisive and self-defeating subject, never more so than now.

Like so many West Indian players who have gone before, Marshall made a mockery of such negative considerations.

Those who mourned - and spoke at yesterdays service and bore his coffin - were of all nationalities, races and backgrounds. Such counterfeit boundaries mean nothing to the genuine sportsman.

He was aware of the tradition of the great West Indians of the past who rose from the same modest environment as he did to become, through their God-given talent and their own positive determination, celebrated and internationally recognised.

He would have identified most of all with a fellow Barbadian who remains the greatest of them all, a knight and one of our national hero.

Like Sir Garry Sobers, Malcolm Marshall was born into a poor, but loving and Godly family. Like Sir Garry, he lost his father in a tragic accident at a young age. Like Sir Garry, he did not have the benefit of university education.

Like Sir Garry, his reputation was not built on statistics alone, as imposing as they were. More relevant was his demeanour.

Tribute after tribute has mentioned his sense of enjoyment, his respect for his fellow human being and the sport he made his profession and his generosity in freely sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm.

They are the traits that have earned West Indian cricketers the esteem in which they have been long since held. Those now touched by Malcolm Marshalls death should appreciate they have been entrusted with perpetuating that tradition

© The Barbados Nation