Oh Lord I’m so excited I could pee my sexy boyshorts! Cricket World Cup is in the Caribbean and the opening ceremony is being held in Jamaica!
Now, I understand absolutely nothing about the game. I have no clue what determines if a team wins. Talk of ‘innings’ and ‘wickets’ and whatnot sounds like an obscure language no one should be using. I think the cricket fans are slightly potty too. Afterall, what well thinking person could derive joy from such a boring game? Even the scoring is weird. Whenever one watches football, netball or any other game, without even having a good understanding of the game, one can actually discern if a team and which team is winning or losing. You hear something like 10-5 or 6-0 and it’s quite obvious to anyone with a modicum of intelligence that one team scored the higher number, the other team scored the lower number and obviously the team with the higher score is the winner.
Not so with cricket. I was reading this article and you’ll see that in the India/West Indies warm-up match that the West Indies were “all out for 85,” huh! Why couldn’t the score be 85-90 like other sensible sport?
When I was a child, there was only one television station here in Jamaica and whenever they had test cricket (which goes on for days on end) that was the only thing on television. Remember I said that there was only one tv station then. It was enough to make me want pull every hair from my head. During those times, I felt like it was a punishment of a magnitude that was unequaled by anything I’ll ever experience and I prayed fervently for quick relief. Thank God there’s cable so even if the local stations broadcast 24/7 we now have options.
So why am I so excited, so filled with pride, so emotional watching Sanchez (our local reggae singer) sing the national anthem at the opening ceremony? Did I suddenly see the light and now able to appreciate the (dubious) merits of the game? Or am I just a bandwagonist, swept up in the tidal wave of excitement that currently permeates the island? Well, yes I’ll admit I’m a bandwagonist and I am not ashame. But it’s a little more than that.
Think about it. The caribbean region, rich in talent but economically poor, highly visible because of its pulsating reggae, soca music, colourful culture, and the fact that we consistently produce world beaters despite the financial challenges. Yet largely ignored. Highly dependent on the economy of the United States. A region, previously inhabited by the English and the Europpeans who quickly abandoned us after we exhausted our usefulness to them when slavery ended. We were no longer a prize worth fighting over. Nine of the tiny countries from this region is host of the third largest sporting event in the world. Damn I am proud to be a West Indian today.
This feeling is not entirely unfamiliar. I felt the same way when Jamaica played in World Cup football finals in 1998, when Trinidad did us proud with its fighting performance in 2006 World Cup footbal finals, when Asafa Powell broke the world record and became the fastest man in the world (and still is!). These individual achievements were great and inspired national as well as regional pride, however, hosting a major sporting event of this scale is the largest collective effort of the region in putting on a single event.
Leading up to the start of the game and still in several quarters there were concerns that the region was not financially ready for such a responsiblity, that the millions (or is it billions) of dollars being spent could have seen a much lasting impact on the economies of these tiny islands if used to alleviate the poverty that exist, improving education, health, infrastructure. These are valid concerns.
While I was more than a little disturbed by these issues, there was still a niggling doubt as to whether the money would have been spent in the needed areas, or would it have been swallowed up in the yawning chasm that is our debt obligations. I do know though, that I was quite heartened by the teams of people seen working in the various areas in a bid to make the island look beautiful. Small though it may seem, it still provided income of a sort and I was somewhat cheered.
I might or might not attend a match or two. The new venues are so beautiful it actually made me want to see the action inside. I won’t understand anything that’s going on, but which sensible person goes to cricket to watch the match anyway? Cricket in the West Indies is about having fun, sipping Red Stripe beer and enjoying the performances of the different artistes who will be entertaining the bandwagonist who like me won’t have a clue about the activities on the field. It’s an opportunity for another rousing caribbean party.
What I do know is I’ll be trying to see Jamaica from the eyes of the tourists. Hoping that they’ll not only see a country (and general area) that they need to return to for holidays but also a region ripe with investment opportunities. Now that’s something we’ll all benefit from long after the world cup is over.
(Hiatus is still on, just had to share that).
