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The day after the end of the T20 World Cup, my daughter and a friend of ours were at my home, and as I was talking cricket, he suggested we have a lime to watch the final.
I burst out laughing, explaining that the final had already gone and the next tournament on the calendar was the CPL. Maybe I was a tad condescending. Maybe.
Photo: Ashley Allen – CPL T20/ CPL T20 via Getty Images
My daughter blurted out: “Well, we can’t help it that you’re a jock.”
I’ve been called many names in my lifetime, but never this one. I was tickled. It never occurred to me that my abiding attachment to cricket qualified me as a jock. I don’t even play.
In any case, I was not going to encourage either of them to come over to watch matches with me. I don’t know which is worse; someone who doesn’t really care about the game asking a million questions just to seem interested, or someone who is obviously bored.
Not my choice of companion spectators.
On the night of her birthday last Tuesday, she and her father came over for dinner (it was unplanned), and to be fair, I’d forgotten it was the eliminator match between TKR and BR. I was admittedly distracted.
She was chatting merrily about something and I interrupted, you know this is the decisive match for TKR. Her impertinent response was, “annoying jock”. Hohoho.
As it turned out that game was turned upside down because of the failed lights at the Guyana National Stadium.
The upshot was that despite an encouraging start from TKR, after a long delay, the match was reduced to five overs with Barbados Royals needing 60 to win according to the DLS calculation. TKR lost.
Photo: Ashley Allen – CPL T20/CPL T20 via Getty Images
It was sad to see, because as often happens in cricket, the DLS system can completely shift the trajectory of a game. It was more than an anti-climactic end, it was unsettling and unexpected.
We know about rain interruptions (as happened in Wednesday’s qualifier between the Guyana Amazon Warriors and the St Lucia Kings), but no one could have imagined such a prolonged delay caused by faulty floodlights.
How many games have been thrown off by the DLS? How many times have we been left reeling by the outcomes?
Photo: Ashley Allen – CPL T20/CPL T20 via Getty Images
I was curious to know if the failure of the lights at the stadium qualified as a match interruption requiring the introduction of the DLS system. Regardless, the truth is that these are elements of cricket that make it so full of uncertainty.
Social media has been bursting with understandable outrage. People feel cheated of the entertainment they had anticipated, and it is my guess that without knowing how to process their feelings they are hitting some very high discordant notes to express themselves.
Some of the common ways sports fans react in the face of defeat range from blaming players and administrators, saying they were robbed, declaring sabotage—you know the range; it happens all around the world.
via: Digicel
Who hasn’t experienced that gamut of emotions? It seems to me that the decision-makers at the game were uncertain as to how to proceed when it became apparent it was not going to be a brief interruption.
Perhaps it would help if contingency plans are more specific—a reserve day maybe—especially in the realm of final matches.
What has been a disturbing element of the unfortunate debacle is the vicious, and to be frank, absurdly foolish responses: boycotting CPL (say the ones who will certainly be back next year), boycotting Guyana; saying the light failure was deliberate.
Yet, it is the absolute venom towards people that has been the most dispiriting aspect to behold. I know sports fans are renowned for their bellicosity—they spew bile as readily as they down alcohol. The team, the team!
One of the best parts of the CPL for me has been the spread of players from so many different nationalities presenting arms for a particular franchise. It allows one to witness the mixture of youth and experience, cultures, and over time, the development of players. It removed a level of partisanship for me.
Yes, instinctively I am a TKR supporter, but I am also predominantly appreciative of good performances, and so I find great pleasure in watching any game, regardless of who’s playing.
Pierre is Trinidadian.
Photo: Randy Brooks/ CPL T20 via Getty Images
It feels like a genuine Caribbean family, even with the inclusion of many overseas players.
But you know, this place is full of masks, and it doesn’t take much to strip them off. Reading some of the online comments (maybe rants is more applicable), the soundtrack in my back brain was David Rudder’s brilliant song after the attempted coup in 1990, “Hosay” that described a momentous unveiling.
“Not in this house, not in this garden of Eden. Oh, how we danced to the beat of this lovely lie, lovely lie. Until a man opened a door and showed us our other side.”
(Copyright AP Photo/ Scott J Applewhite)
It felt like the lovely illusion of a Caribbean people filled with warmth and respect for each other had been stripped aside to reveal the seething envy and hostility that exists right under the skin.
Forget the ongoing racial and political animosities that are continuously on display right here in Trinidad and Tobago. This is a Caribbean where people are crudely attacking each other under the guise of sport support.
Jocks? I don’t think so. This had nothing to do with cricket at all.
Photo: Randy Brooks/ CPL T20 via Getty Images
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Vaneisa Baksh is a columnist with the Trinidad Express, an editor and a cricket historian. She is the author of a biography of Sir Frank Worrell.
For most of us true fans, the seemingly hateful comments are not personal, but done in jest and is no different to the fanatics of New York Yankees who make snide remarks against the Boston Red Sox team and fans. It’s all in fun! Chicken Curry vs Curry Chicken. Once the game is over, it’s like sibling rivalry. We hug and move on!