So ended a long and glorious relationship. As he headed off in May this year to the World Cup in England, Walsh didn't expect to be playing county cricket for another year. It came to a sad ending, and at this time, I don't really feel that there is anything there for me. I was never one to make long-term plans. Walsh's rupture with Gloucestershire, and the bitterness it engendered, are perhaps a symptom of the new order emerging in world cricket.
Players now see themselves first and foremost as professionals.
They demand compensatory packages they feel are commensurate with their skill and the revenue they bring to the game. Walsh, the longest-serving member of the current West Indies team, has come to be regarded as the last survivor of a dying tradition. Courtney Walsh has been around cricket for as long as he can remember. Born in Molynes Road in the Half Way Tree area of Kingston, Jamaica, he was the only child born to his mother Joan by his father, Eric. They separated soon after he was born, his father migrating to the USA, searching, like many West Indians, for a better life.