White West Indians have produced more first-class players per thousand of their population than any other community anywhere

Racial generalizations - about certain people being good at ball games - won't help. There has been no West African cricketer; the only Chinese cricketers of standing have come from Trinidad; and, though the fact is seldom noticed, white West Indians have produced more first-class players per thousand of their population than any other community anywhere. Consider now the history of the islands: slavery until 1834, indentured labour until 1917. And then consider the cricket code: gentlemanliness, fair play, teamwork. The very words are tired and, in the West Indian situation, ridiculous, irrelevant. But they filled a need. In islands that had known only brutality and proclaimed greed, cricket and its code provided an area of rest, a release for much that was denied by the society: skill, courage, style: the graces, the very things that a changed world are making the game archaic.   

V.S. Naipaul, 'The Caribbean flavour' (1963), R. Guha (ed.), The Picador book of cricket (2001), 433-4