Torment of a Windies Fan
Cricket fans the world over have one thing in common. They have a love for a sport which has the ability to plunge them into despair as instantly as it can take them to heights of euphoria. Such is the nature of the game of cricket.
Suffice it to say that being a West Indian fan, especially in the last eight years, has caused more despair than we could've imagined.
Never mind the numerous nights we deprive ourselves of much needed sleep to watch as our team play overseas games, only to spend the remainder of our day cussing and swearing and vowing never again. This as our team suffers defeat after humiliating defeat and leaves us wondering what went wrong. Still we continue to wake up night after night only to suffer more despair.
I suppose we have an insatiable appetite for torture and punishment. By now, those on the outside have branded us as "sadists" at worse and "fanatics" at best, as we continue to indulge in the self-torture tour after overseas tour.
After the teams performance in the recent home series against Australia and later Sri Lankan we began to think that they had turned the proverbial "corner". After all we managed to win the Final test against Australia and beating Sri Lanka 1-0. So after this creditable showing it was not unreasonable to optimistic about the African tour. After all, Zimbabwe is no match for an improving West Indies team with the likes of Lara, Gayle, Sarwan, Ganga, Chanderpaul, etc.
Many of us thought that all we needed to do was to show up and Zimbabwe would roll over and play dead. Most thought that a 2-0 whopping of Zimbabwe was a formality. We refused to acknowledge that but for a few of most of our players were ordinary in the recently concluded Red Stripe Bowl. Never mind that we ignored Zimbabwe's showing in their series against Australia.
Apparently, so did the entire team.
The cavalier approach of our batsmen in the first Test and the wayward bowling is testament to a team that was under prepared and not focused on the task at hand. But for the pride and courage displayed by the lower order batting, we would've suffered the ignominy of being asked to follow-on by no lesser a team than Zimbabwe.
As if that was not embarrassing enough the batsmen it would seem, plotted to lose the match. Thankfully, there are a few who still have some guts and so a job reserved for the likes of Lara, Sarwan, and company fell once again to the lower order. A gutsy performance by Fidel 'Castro' Edwards and Ridley Jacobs, a man many think should step aside saw us hanging on for draw. The pair came together with the score 204-9 and defeat staring us in the face and batted for 11.5 overs to deny the Zimbabweans of what would've been a well deserved victory.
In the process they manage to salvage an unlikely draw and save the team its blushes, but more importantly rescue the region from the collective despair that a loss to Zimbabwe would've caused.
So as the second Test starts and we delight in the early run-spree, it's not a stretch to expect us to be cussing again soon. For as sure as night follow day we will all be up watching (for those lucky enough) and listening to the performance of our team.
What can I say, we just love torture... Rally!