Stereotypes are dangerous tools, as much in sport as in life. But, in so much as they serve any purpose, they can often touch at a useful, very general truth.
So to argue that cricket’s shortest format is, by nature, attuned best to the Caribbean style of play is both as incomplete as a stereotype, but also not the most ridiculous assertion to make.
There is no single way to play Twenty20, nor is there one homogenous Caribbean style. Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Kieron Pollard are both, for instance, West Indian cricketers. Long time ago, Larry Gomes and Viv Richards represented one team.
If the asserting is being done by Carl Hooper, however, it is maybe worth pondering. Hooper evokes a certain kind of misty-eyed nostalgia. It is not quite right to say of a player who captained his country, who played over 100 Tests and 200 ODIs, that he did not fulfil the potential with which he arrived.
But Hooper will forever be branded by the impression that he was much more than what he ended as. To an extent, the easy wristiness of his batting ensured the love. But put together his very modern off-spin and his electric fielding and sure, he should go down as an undisputed legend, or at least a bigger one than his averages suggest.
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