World Cup Diary
That's a bit more like it
With a little admission about ticket prices and another message to fans to bring in the noise, even the ICC seem to have acknowledged fears expressed beforehand about the tournament, a situation superbly captured by Paul Harris in his Sunday
Rahul Bhattacharya
25-Feb-2013
With a little admission about ticket prices and another message to fans to bring in the noise, even the ICC seem to have acknowledged fears expressed beforehand about the tournament, a situation superbly captured by Paul Harris in his Sunday Stabroek cartoon.
It has the World Cup CEO, Chris Dehring in a butler suit, presenting on a platter the CWC 2007: “Exactly how would you like it Sir…Not spicy… Not exuberant … Not…???” The man at the table is Malcolm Speed, wearing a Rasta hat with dreads, fish and plantain chips on the table before him, a bongo with Rally Roun’ De West Indies sitting beside him. “Oh! Lighten up will you, Chris ‘ol chap…?”
Indeed spontaneity and intimacy has been sacrificed. Take for example, the thing about musical instruments. Persons can carry conch shells, shak shaks and other instruments into the stadium with permission from the Local Organising Committee, we’re told. Persons can, but no normal person will. Few souls can have the same clinical approach to taking a musical instrument to the cricket as applying for a home loan. Iceboxes must have to be of a certain size. In Trinidad I was allowed to take in a bottle but only if I took off the cap. Meanwhile, given the rates, it ought be illegal to call those stalls selling food and drink Concessions as proud yellow banners do. And so on.
Full postVideo killed the radio star
As for my driver, he’d have to fret and fume for half an hour before the religious chants that he didn’t know or care for gave way to the highpoint of his day
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
No, The Buggles weren’t in town, but strange things were happening
on Guyana’s airwaves as I drove to the stadium. Stephen, my driver who was
in his early 20s, had switched on the radio almost as soon as I got in,
and much of our conversation centred about what West Indies needed to do
to stay alive in the competition. Even as Colin Croft and friends nattered
on about the conditions, Stephen fretted about the toss. The sky above was
slate-grey and the sun couldn’t be glimpsed. “You don’t want to be facing
dat Malinga in dem conditions, man,” he told me, tapping on the steering
wheel with his knuckles as the commentary team built up to the toss.
His anxiety was palpable. “Dat Daren Powell be de only man bowlin’ well,”
he told me. “He got good pace. We have a guy like Malinga … Fidel Edwards,
but he no have the accuracy.” I recalled the press conference on Saturday
and the searching questions that Croft had asked Brian Lara about the
tactics and team composition against New Zealand, criticism that had been
echoed by Michael Holding. What did Stephen think of Lara, and the former
greats slating him?
Caught between two stools, Stephen chose to do the splits. “Croft from
here [Guyana], man,” he said quietly, “but Lara great player. If he mek
runs, we win.” As we talked, the expert voices floating through the car
speakers engaged in analysis of their own. Croft isn’t an easy man to
silence, but a few seconds later, the station announcer managed to do just
that.
With a serious-sounding voice, he spoke of how the cricket talk was
“light-hearted chat” before the game began in half an hour. He then went
on to say that they were going back to the original programming, the
Mahakali religious group and their chants. The toss? Clearly not as
important as some bhajans about Hanuman.
Full postIndian fans miss out after expensive exit
Andrew Miller
25-Feb-2013
What's worse than travelling 7000 miles to watch a match for which your team has failed to qualify? Answer: Travelling 7000 miles to watch the grass grow for five hours on a sodden outfield, in a match for which your team has failed to qualify.
That was the fate that befell several hundred Indian spectators at Antigua today. They had booked in anticipation of watching their team take on Australia in a pivotal Super Eights showdown. Instead it was the groundstaff versus the elements in the biggest mismatch of the tournament to date.
Full postWhy Antigua is just not ready
The islands of St Kitts and Antigua are separated by just 63 miles of water, but in terms of preparedness for this World Cup, they might as well be at opposite extremes of the widest ocean on the planet
Andrew Miller
25-Feb-2013
The islands of St Kitts and Antigua are separated by just 63 miles of water, but in terms of preparedness for this World Cup, they might as well be at opposite extremes of the widest ocean on the planet. Over the past four days at the Sir Vivian Richards stadium, I have watched
with an uncontrived sense of depression a West Indian campaign that began with such hope in Jamaica has floundered with barely a whimper.
No-one seems to care that the ship is sinking, and that is unbelievably sad. On Wednesday, Brian Lara expressed his disappointment at the lack of local support; by Thursday, he seemed to have taken matters into his own hands by marshalling a West Indian performance of such staggering indifference, it might as well have been a V-sign to the few fans who made it to the ground. By Saturday, for the want of a viable supersopper, an intriguing match-up between
Australia and Bangladesh was reduced to yet another farce.
In the circumstances, a reasonable crowd of 3000 hung around to witness the non-events, and they deserved to be congratulated. The hoops through which these people have been forced to jump for this leg of the tournament, the distances they have been asked to travel, and the prices they've been expected to pay are unreasonable by any standards, let alone on an island so small that a quarter of the population would have had to be mobilised if the 20,000 capacity was to be filled.
Full postGreatness has no parochial boundaries
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
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After seeing Jamaica's Wall of Honour, I had wondered why Sir Frank Worrell, a Barbadian by birth, was included alongside Jamaican legends like Michael Holding, Courtney Walsh and Lawrence Rowe . The answer was provided by Amanda Lynch-Foster, who writes for The Nation in Barbados.
She informed me that Worrell had lived in Jamaica for a number of years after leaving Barbados in the 1950s on account of it being too race and class-conscious. Apart from being a senator in Jamaica, Worrell was also instrumental in establishing the region's second great uniting factor, the University of the West Indies. According to Lynch-Foster, who studied on the Mona campus in Kingston herself, Worrell was even hall warden at Irvine Hall on the campus.
Full post'The <i>balata</i> sting like rass bai'
‘Old talk’ with an elderly family friend, because Debita Harripersaud is fond of that kind of natter, was the spur to make the product which launched a great Guyanese nostalgia
Rahul Bhattacharya
25-Feb-2013
‘Old talk’ with an elderly family friend, because Debita Harripersaud is fond of that kind of natter, was the spur to make the product which launched a great Guyanese nostalgia. The images evoked are of the innocence of the countryside and of playing, of boys young and old lashing with coconut fronds balls made from balata.
Having grown up in a cricket-mad family, Harripersaud, a physiotherapist who sometimes works with the Guyanese team, felt it fitting to conceive a tribute to the time and ethos during the World Cup. Decades after the bleeding of balata – the sap of the Bulletwood tree – has tapered off from a large-scale activity to a tiny crafts industry for souvenir items, she commissioned 200 special edition balata balls to be handmade by the Makushi tribe of the Guyanese interior.
These have autographed by the three of the four living legends of Guyanese cricket: Rohan Kanhai, the master batsman, Clive Lloyd, the supreme captain, and Lance Gibbs, the finest spinner in West Indian history (Roy Fredericks, the fourth, died at 57 seven years ago).
All, to varying degrees, have had experience with balata balls, as have hundreds of others who grew up in the Fifties. Times were hard, money was tight, equipment had to be made at home. Balls were made with balata, whose other uses have ranged from cavity fillings to golf balls.
Full postHanging out in The Blue Iguana
By the time we exit the press box after an ultimately thrilling first game at Guyana's new stadium, it's almost nine
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
By the time we exit the press box after an ultimately thrilling first game
at Guyana's new stadium, it's almost nine. Time enough to head home for a
quick bite and a shower before going to The Blue Iguana, a spacious
pub where a five-year-old El Dorado rum, mixed with coconut water, costs
less than 200 Guyanese dollars (1 US$) and it also has a number of
worse-for-wear pool tables to choose from.
There's also the music, chutney and dance-hall hits blaring from the
speakers. And as we settle down at the bar, one of the first persons I see
is Gareth Flusk, who played for Easterns and Transvaal before switching to
doing commentary for the South African Broadcasting Corporation. We'd met
a few months earlier in South Africa, and we laugh about his T-shirt which
makes no secret of his Johannesburg loyalties. "Cape Town has mountains,
we have taste," it says.
I'm more curious about his time at Easterns now that I've come across
Adrian Birrell, the Ireland coach. Birrell spent 16 years in the Eastern Cape as player and
coach before journeying to Ireland seven years ago. Gareth played under
him before he was succeeded by Kepler Wessels, and has nothing but good
things to say about a man who has worked wonders with the Irish.
"He's a very professional, dedicated sort," he tells me. "Loves his job,
and gets on with it without any fuss. He was great to work with." It
tallies with my own impression of a man who comes running back to complete
an interview after he'd had to leave in a hurry for a team meeting. And
unlike some coaches who bask in the public gaze, Birrell is most happy in
the background, letting Trent Johnston and his boys bask in the glory of
what they've achieved.
Full postRhodes redux
There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed , sang the Beatles in the days when one-day cricket was restricted to a Gillette Cup and little else
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed,
sang the Beatles in the days when one-day cricket was restricted to a
Gillette Cup and little else. And I can certainly recall where I was on March 8, 1992. I should have been at home, waiting for a
call from my first love, but once a cricket-crazy cousin came round with
news that a small video store was pulling down illegal images of the game,
there was never any thought of love or other demons.
We scampered over in time for the start of Pakistan's run chase, and there were no prizes for guessing which team had the support of the majority crammed into the poky little room. Having just come back into the international fold, South Africa were suddenly everyone's second team, and a whole generation of young people was trying to field like Jonty Rhodes. The results, if the sprains, cuts and bandages were anything to go by, weren't always favourable.
When it happened, it was time for snacks, and our attention wasn't where it
should have been. It was only when we heard a few people swearing out loud
that we turned to the screen. The replay told us what we'd missed. For the
rest of the afternoon, people talked of little else. Jonty became a hero who
transcended continents, and when South Africa played at the Brabourne
Stadium a year later, a couple of people I knew went just to watch him. They
got their money's worth in the form of five catches, a couple of them
stunning.
Full postGuyana's giant mushroom
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
The Guyana National Stadium at Providence is about a half-hour ride from the centre of Georgetown, and it springs up over the horizon suddenly, a bit like a mushroom emerging from the earth. The Buddy's International Hotel, where many of the media are staying, is right next door, and those with a particularly fanciful imagination might even compare the two constructions to two UFOs that have landed in the middle of nowhere.
The one thing you don't want to hear when you arrive at a venue on the eve of a game is construction noises, the sound of cement mixers and power-drills, but the recent rain has meant that work on the stadium isn't quite complete. It's a situation that horrifies some, but for those of us from countries where the chalta-hai (It happens) approach is
commonplace, it's hardly an eye-opener.
Full postThe flight of a lifetime
From St Kitts to Antigua: a cockpit experience
Andrew Miller
25-Feb-2013
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A lot of your life on tour is spent at airports. A lot more of it if you happen to be in the West Indies. It's not so much that they are inefficient in the Caribbean, it's just … well, where's the hurry? If it takes 90 minutes to check in your bags, well, that's no problem, 30 minutes per customer is pretty good when you think about it. And if your flight doesn't leave for a good hour after the scheduled departure time, you can but kick back and relax, and accept that that was nothing more than a basis for negotiation anyway. As for my baggage, it hasn't yet gone missing, although I'm assured that's only a matter of time.
Having said all that, however, I don't believe I'll ever experience a flight quite like the one I took last evening. It lasted barely half an hour but it'll live with me for a lifetime. And that, I suppose, is what it's all about out here. If you take the rough with the smooth and the mundane with the extraordinary, you'll end up with an enriching experience one way or the other.
It's fair to say that my last few hours in St Kitts had been ever so slightly tedious. It's a pretty sleepy airport at the very best of times, and 8 o'clock in the evening on a Monday night certainly isn't the best of times. Everything was shut, including the brain of the girl behind the LIAT check-in desk, and despite arriving alarmingly early by my usual standards, I was soon shunted to the back of the queue when it transpired I hadn't paid my Airport Facilities Tax: US$30 for the right to perch for an hour on an unspectacular plastic seat.
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