Drum Magazine Issue 2 | Page 31

What Do They Know Of Cricket...? 2 9 Carlton Baugh. Test match between England and the West Indies 2004. I give in ‘cos I know he’s right. I will never appreciate the sport, but even I can’t deny the magic Photography © Smilie “We took their game and we made it ours. They didn’t even give us test status until 1928, and yet we went on to produce some of the best cricketers ever to play the game; the team of the late 70s and 80s that anyone who knows the game has to admit is the greatest ever. And we did it on our terms, son. West Indian cricket isn’t about tea and polite applause and being a damn ‘gentleman’! It’s colour, it’s life, it’s freedom. It’s a party! We conquered the world playing a style of cricket that put the whole region on the map: cricket with style, cricket with flair and power. And we won.” “Ok, ok. You won. So…um…what happened?” “Watch that tongue, heathen! So this isn’t the best Windies team ever, I grant you. But things are changing back home. Some people are worried that cricket won’t be the game of the people forever. Satellite TV is beaming football and basketball into people’s houses. The world is changing, opening up cricket isn’t the young West Indian boy’s most likely way out of a life of hardship anymore. “But there’s too much history…as Sir Clive Lloyd said: ‘Cricket is the glue that keeps us together’. It won’t die, it’s too strong. “A successful team, a new set of heroes, and cricket will be back again, front and centre where it should be.” “Aagh! I give in…” I give in ‘cos I know he’s right. I will never appreciate the sport, but even I can’t deny the magic, the hold it has over so many West Indian men and women. I can see it in my Dad’s eyes as he watches his heroes thousands of miles away on Sky Sports. All over the country, all over the world, there are thousands, millions more like him, for whom this sport is their link with home. It is their home. I still wouldn’t put money on my lasting an entire test match if the dull bread knife option were open to me, but if I am honest with myself, my Dad’s years of hectoring and badgering have paid off in a way. For what it means to him, for what it means to where we are from, I can never really hate cricket. In fact, I’m prepared to love it. But from a distance.