For those hooked on the syrupy celebrity confection that passes off for cricket these days, I recommend a documentary called ‘Fire in Babylon’ by writer director Stevan Riley. This is a story about how the West Indies cricket team under captain Clive Lloyd, which suffered humiliating physical and verbal battering during its 1975-76 tour of Australia, channeled their rage and became the world’s most fierce cricketing force.
Australian fast bowlers Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson subjected the West Indians to the kind of battering that was reminiscent of the notorious Bodyline series of 1932-33 between England and Australia that featured Don Bradman. When you consider that Thomson, whose run-up was boosted by the chants of “Thommo Thommo” from the around the stadium, was bowling at speeds anywhere between 140 and 180 kilometers per hour you can imagine the pain when a batsman got hit with the ball.
That series stirred up something primal among the West Indians who decided to use their rage in a systematic fashion to get even. The team decided to let go of what was patronizingly called its calypso charms and turned into a ruthless cricketing machine under Lloyd and then under Vivian Richards.
As much as the documentary is about cricket, it is more about a nation, through its cricketing team, shaking off its colonial past. Richards, in particular, used his bat like a sword slicing and cutting through the legacy of a colonized country.And then there were the “fearsome four” Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft and Joel Garner whose bowling struck terror among batsmen. Garner, I remember, was called the Big Bird because he was 6 feet 8 inches.
I have not yet fully seen the documentary but going by what I have seen, read and remember from the late 1970s this sounds highly promising.

