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How did Barbados and Antigua produce so many great cricketers?

Dissector

International Debutant
Barbados has a population of 285,000 and Antigua a population of 85,000 for a combined population of 370,000, less than a tenth of that of New Zealand. Yet in the period from 1950-2000 their combined team would have been something like this:

Greenidge
Haynes
Worrell (captain)
Richards
Weekes
Sobers
Walcott (wk)
Marshall
Garner
Roberts
Ambrose

I reckon this team would have held its own against a World 11 from the same period. It has to be one of the most astonishing concentrations of talent in a small place in the history of sports.

Any thoughts about why these two places produced such a disproportionate amount of cricket talent ?
 

brackenNY

School Boy/Girl Captain
To fill up a cricket side, you only need eleven players. So the difference between a pool of 500,000 people and 1 billion isn't as exponential as you'd think.
 

GotSpin

Hall of Fame Member
To fill up a cricket side, you only need eleven players. So the difference between a pool of 500,000 people and 1 billion isn't as exponential as you'd think.
errr. 11 top quality ATG players is different to players plucked from the street
 

brackenNY

School Boy/Girl Captain
Yeah, but the top 1% of a billion gives you a lot more to choose from than the top 1% of 500,000....
And it also makes it harder to select your XI with a talent pool that large. Smaller pool means you spend your resources and effort more wisely.

Don't get me wrong, I do think there are advantages to having a higher population, but it only goes so far. I mean look at India, over a billion people, you'd think they'd produce a genuine fast bowler.
 

NZ Guy

U19 Captain
And it also makes it harder to select your XI with a talent pool that large. Smaller pool means you spend your resources and effort more wisely.

Don't get me wrong, I do think there are advantages to having a higher population, but it only goes so far. I mean look at India, over a billion people, you'd think they'd produce a genuine fast bowler.
So population of 100 vs population of 1000000000000 will create teams of equal strength
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Yeah, but the top 1% of a billion gives you a lot more to choose from than the top 1% of 500,000....
Not really, unless you have an amazing way of filtering the talent. A billion just gives you more leeway in the amount of talent you waste and smaller nations need to be more efficient but the top of the pyramid allows the same number of players regardless of how many are at the bottom.

Look at Zim, they were a brand new nation to the Test scene in the 1990s and the team was pretty much drawn from approx 50 000 whites (a disproportionately old population as well.)

They had a 1-1-1 series (and match record) against India in the 90s.

Systems, local competition, cultural importance and momentum are important in populations producing talent.

There is no genetic difference between the white population of Zim and that of England but a population the size of Aldershot can produce a Test team but Aldershot (as an example) can barely produce a cricketer.
 

bagapath

International Captain
forget antigua, barbados alone can put together a XI that can challenge all time XIs of other nations.

Greenidge
Haynes
Weekes
Worrell
Walcott
Sobers
Murray (WK)
Marshall
Garner
Hall
Griffith
 

MrIncredible

U19 Cricketer
Good team but reckon more like:

Hunte
Greenidge
Weekes
Worrell*
Nurse
Sobers
Walcott+
Marshall
Garner
Clarke
Hall

Just for kicks a Rest of the WI Xi:

Stollmeyer
Rae
Headley
Richards*
Lara
Kanhai
Dujon+
Holding
Ambrose
Roberts
Walsh
 

Dissector

International Debutant
Yeah Barbados is amazing on its own. However given that Antigua has less than one third of its population, it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath. And I think Richards, Ambrose and Roberts take that already great Barbados all-time team to truly stratospheric heights.
 

morgieb

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It really is amazing. They have about 1/10th of Sydney's population and have an amazing side that could beat a rest of the world XI. West Indies does produce a lot of natural athletes though, plus their culture was very positive to cricket.
 

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