Certainly there are greater disciplines by far than just playing a game, but I would suggest that in a man’s quest for self- fulfilment he must experience, and not superficially either, that excitement one gets in participating in sport. It’s in sport that we learn to lose or win graciously, to give in but not give up, to appreciate the difference between quantity and quality, to strive without easing for betterment if not for excellence. You’re forced in sport to ask yourself a lot of questions: How far do I wish to go? How many enemies will I inevitably make? And you have to come up with the right answers. Often you find, as you grow every which way intellectually, emotionally, religiously, psychically, physically that your answers are more often wrong than right. But still you persist, and still you press on. Until, as I said, you find for yourself the greatest lesson that sport has to teach, a personalised lesson for each of us. Yes, sport really matters to us. So why is it that we unquestioningly accept what others say about us? I’ll show you what I mean. I don’t have my young men around at the moment to help with research, so I’ll confine myself to Wisden (in italics) 1964 and Sportrait I, an OPM production. Here is Wisden: “It would be difficult to imagine a more entertaining batsman than ROHAN BABULAL KANHAI, leading scorer for either country in last season’s England v. West Indies Test series. Quick of eye and foot, he times the ball almost perfectly when executing a wide variety of strokes, some of which border upon the audacious, and at his best he can master the most formidable of bowlers.” I’m certain of this one error in that paragraph: Kanhai’s middle name is Bholalall. Not Babulal. And with two l’s at the end, not just one l, as I myself had wrongly assumed until a friend put me right.

Another example. Some 25 years ago, three of us published Sportrait I on Lance Gibbs. We ascertained then that Gibbs’s full name is, in fact, Lancelot Richard Gibbs. Indeed, Lance was good enough to show us a copy from the Register of Births which you will find on page 13 of our publication. So with Gibbs’s name there’s no problem. The problem starts when we look at his official record. In Sportrait and remember, we did our homework carefully, you will find that Gibbs’s Test record reads thus:

No. of Tests 79

Total of Overs 4221.7

Total Wickets 309

Total Runs 8983

You’ll find those figures in Sportrait, but if you check any other authorities, you’ll find that they follow Wisden blindly, perpetuating the inaccuracy in the Cricketers’ Bible. Yet again, the 1985 edition of Wisden has this information:

Harper, R.A. (Guyana) b. Oct. 31, 1957. The following year, after we had brought the error to their attention, the entry read Harper, R.A. (Guyana and Northants) b. Mar 17, 1963 But when we wrote them about the error concerning Gibbs’s record, no such correction was made. (It’s easy to double-check a date of birth, but to double-check a record means going right back until you’ve traced the error.) If we want accuracy, then we must have our own statisticians, comparing notes with one another so that outsiders will have to consult us if they are at variance. And we’re not knocking Wisden, but we are encouraging our experts here in the Caribbean to do their homework. In a word, we need to put our own house in order.