Madness: Cricket and football

05, Apr 1999
We are still in shambles as regard openers; too many of our batsmen are falling to the LBW trap when facing clinical bowling, a clear sign of technical deficiencies; and our second string bowlers lack penetration and consistency Jamaica in terms of structure are light years ahead of us, that is why they were able to find each other so easily in the course of the game...The victory ...must be disregarded completely. It was the worst display by a national football team in years.

On Wednesday, the morning after, there was an extra bounce in the gait of Trinis as they made their way to work. There are no means of measure available but one feels certain that productivity-wise, Wednesday, the day after that, soon to be famous, Kensington Test match, must have been one of the greatest in our recent history.

It is all about how cricket, that game of bat and ball and character, serves to energise a people, rekindle all their hopes and dreams and stir their loins to face present and future challenges.

It is about the masses of people who cannot be anything but honest about their human condition, who recognise that they are not perfect, who as they face all the trials and tribulations of existence take their personal weaknesses and failings as par for the course, and keep their sights on the Olympian mounts, knowing fully well that all that is ever necessary is that they give their best shot and seize the opportunities when they come along. And those who pray, pray, and seek solace and divine guidance as they face the obstacles.

That is all that has happened with Lara and his team in the period between the South African debacle and the Kensington victory.

From pariah to hero, from the brink of utter and total rejection as captain to being dubbed the great humbler of the world's best cricket team.

Character is not built in a month. Character is the result of the sum total of a person's history at any given point. Lara's character was moulded in Bunty's and Pearl's house, at Fatima College, at Havard's cricket school, etc. If Lara's character was flawed, it meant that something must have gone amiss way back in time.

The pundits, in their vacuousness, read too much into Lara's exuberance of youth and initial reaction to being cricket's first international "superstar". Now we shall hear plenty platitudes tumbling from the lips of people such as the Coziers, Holdings, Beccas and Manohar Ramsarans.

But will this victory, being hailed now as the greatest in the best Test match ever played, make such people better people? It is the deceit, the dishonesty, the hypocrisy and the shamelessness that make you want to puke.

Only after Jamaica, where Cozier knew before hand that Lara would be booed, were we to become aware that in South Africa, Lara had initiated a confidential tete a tete with Cozier in an attempt to comprehend what he was doing wrong and the reasons for the bad press he was getting. Is that an example of flawed character or someone attempting to come to terms with a new world?

Would the Beccas and the Holdings have kept up their rantings if this tete a tete between Lara and Cozier had been made known sooner?

Instead Cozier persisted with the negatives, criticising Lara for missing team workouts in South Africa and such the like, which have since being shown to be blatant lies by Colin Croft who was present at all the workouts.

Manohar Ramsaran, our Sports Minister, possessed little information about what was happening before and during the tour of South Africa but he knew enough to conclude that Lara should be fired and Chanderpaul be made captain. Lord, help us!

When we look at problems, what do we really see? Cozier claims that he told Lara to let his bat do the talking. So we are to assume that now that Lara has done that, the problems are over.

In all sports it is easy to attain the number one spot, the difficulty is to maintain it. We must demand that the so-called management appraisals be done and no one, including the CEO of the Board must be exempted from its parameters. As a matter of fact, particularly the CEO of the Board.

We are still in shambles as regard openers; too many of our batsmen are falling to the LBW trap when facing clinical bowling, a clear sign of technical deficiencies; and our second string bowlers lack penetration and consistency.

We may consider scrapping the Busta Cup as presently organised on an island by island basis and allow the development of professional clubs cutting across island borders and have a playoff between such clubs as the highlight of the season. Such an approach will surely stymie the island insularity that ferments when island playoffs are the basis for West Indian selection.

We need to get our best cricketing minds in the region together to work out the kind of infrastructure that is to be implemented to fashion our talents and develop our game for the future. We must not let recent victories distract us from the task at hand.

Likewise, a note about the football. The victory over Jamaica must be disregarded completely. It was the worst display by a national football team in years. Why are we patting ourselves on the back? TT could not even bring the ball out of our area with any confidence or certainty. Shaka on realising this began to bang the ball out as far up the field as possible, only to have it brought back down to him by the Jamaicans.

Imagine playing Jamaica without a plan to shut down Whitmore and Goddison in midfield? Jamaica in terms of structure are light years ahead of us, that is why they were able to find each other so easily in the course of the game.

Where was our defence? Where was Mr Elcock, our best defender? Listen and listen well, Nixon is a natural striker, not an attacking midfielder like Ryan Giggs, and Rougier is a defensive midfielder, not a natural "right-winger" like Beckham. Here endedth the Manchester United analogy. Please let us begin to think! Enough said.