Dominica: a cricket fan's delight
Fri, Jul 11, '14
Even before I get to the island I begin to get a sense of how passionate Dominicans are about cricket. On my flight down to make my connection in Barbados, my seatmate turns out to be from Dominica. Unsurprisingly, she is in fact my host's cousin. When I tell her that I'm going down to watch the Twenty20 matches in Roseau, her eyes light up. As we chat about cricket and Dominica, she decides to go out for the Sunday match.
Waiting for the LIAT flight to Dominica, the world cup is on. Brazil is playing Columbia. Even though everyone is watching the football and cheering on Brazil, there are still murmurs of cricket rippling through the clusters of people. Much of it centers around Darren Sammy, immensely popular. But also popular are Kieron Pollard and Chris Gayle. There is disappointment that Gayle will miss these matches, but it won't keep them away.
I catch a taxi at Melville Hall airport, inconveniently located about as far away from Roseau as you can get. The driver turns out to be a huge fan of cricket. So is his other passenger, a middle aged lady who had also come in on my flight. He lectures passionately about the ills of West Indies cricket, bemoans its downfall, and prescribes its treatment. Pride, he says, is missing. Players are pigeonholed by the board. Chanderpaul should be playing limited overs. He brings back names of players I had forgotten. Clayton Lambert. Keroy Peters. Franklin Rose. It occurs to me that he has driven many of our players to and from the airport over the years, even before international cricket was played here.
The next morning I walk down to Windsor Park to get my media pass. One of the charming things about Roseau is that you can walk anywhere. I am not terribly surprised that no one from the WICB media group can be found, or reached even at their listed Dominica numbers. By a curious logic, you need your pass to get to where you can find the people who have your pass. But the local people from the Dominica Cricket Association take care of me and get me to WICB Commercial Manager Nelecia Yeates, who gives me a temporary pass that gets me in to the media centre.
It's a lonely place. Fazeer Mohammed types away on his laptop at a table. A few other people I don't recognise lounge near the railing, presumably support staff. No WICB people are to be found. I eventually decide to join the queue for tickets outside, although the Shillingford Stand has already sold out. But before I can do this, my local friend calls and says he has an extra VIP pass. The opportunity is too good to squander.
The game won't start for over an hour but already you can feel the vibe. Crowds throng on the street outside, and the yellow bridge serves a steady stream of people coming in by car and foot. Food vendors are doing a brisk business, and I grab a bake with smoked herring and watch the carnival of people. All ages are represented, with the younger crowd in particular sparing no pains to look good. And they do.
I walk back up to where I'm staying, just above Windsor Park. You can hear the festivities below. Of course, as typical West Indians, we end up running a little late. And of course, the West Indies are already two down for not much by the time we arrive. We don't need mobile alerts to tell us things are going on; the crowd keeps us well informed as we make our way in.
Once inside I'm taken aback by the scale of the spectators. It's a throwaway two game series, served up as a light dessert after the heavier fare of the Tests. Neither side has a huge stake in it, and the New Zealanders are not a prime attraction in this format. But undetered, the Dominicans fill the stands, along with a smattering of Trinis, Bajans, and folks from nearby "small islands". But of course, they are all nearby.
One Trinidadian tells me how he can watch cricket at Queens Park Oval any time, but he enjoys coming here for it. And I can see why -- the atmosphere is vibrant, the stands full of happy, boisterous people, here to cheer on their team. A fellow standing next to me tells me that people in Dominica are so happy to finally have international cricket -- the stadium was only opened after the 2007 ICC World Cup -- that even when lowly Bangladesh came to play a Test match the crowds turned out.
Once inside, I am introduced to various people. At one point I'm told, "oh, this is Billy". Billy as in Doctrove, who stood in 38 Test matches, 112 ODIs, and 17 T20s, representing West Indies cricket every bit as much as any batsman or bowler. I shake his hand and we engage in some small talk, waiting for the groundsmen to finish up after the rain delay. The Kiwis are doing drills, but Darren Sammy is the only West Indian similarly inclined, taking a knock at the boundary before resumption of play while his teammates look on from the comfort of their seats.
We eventually lose the match, but the crowd happily cheers on the home team anyway. Like anywhere in the region, advice is freely dispensed from the boundary to players within earshot. West Indies batsmen are greeted enthusiastically. Wickets, even when they are too few and too late are greeted joyfully. Kieron Pollard comes out to chants of "Pollard, Pollard". The roar when Sammy appears is deafening. Dominicans, the fellow next to me says, respect a hard worker.
Words of encouragement and cries of dismay pepper the air. "Oh Sammy, oh Sammy, oh Sammy," sobs one woman not far from me when the captain gets out to a poorly timed shot. She seems in genuine distress, but a few seconds later erupts with laughter when a companion says something to her. She came to enjoy herself, and setbacks are quickly forgotten.
Later, over fish dinner at Kimani's in Pointe Michel, I join in the cricket talk. A couple fellows from Trinidad are there, and we all share our disappointment with the result and with the perceived lack of interest on the part of the West Indian players. Again, much is assigned to a lack of pride and a primary interest in easy money. As we continue to express our dissatisfaction with the players, the management, and the system, the Trinis start making eye signals at our side of the bar. It seems that Richie Richardson has also come for the steamed fish and is quietly having his dinner in a corner, hitherto unnoticed. A laugh ensues, and we turn to lighter topics, as I wonder how often Richie has heard this same conversation and whether he shares the fans' perceptions -- right or wrong -- with the players or the board. I wonder whether it would make any difference to them if he did.
The following day, the West Indies' fortunes improve. Impressively, so does the turnout. The small gaps here and there are filled. The staircases are lined. Even outside, those who could not get in watch from the parts of the road where you can see in between the stands. No one asks them to move along. Inside, my media pass somewhat sorted out, I wander the boundary, taking photos of the players and the crowd and being very careful not to be "that guy" who wanders across the sightscreen. The fans erupt at every boundary and every wicket, no matter which side produces it. This crowd appreciates good cricket more than anything, and when Pollard is out to a sensational catch by Trent Boult, they show Boult their appreciation both in real time and during the playback on the big screen. They may be West Indies fans, but they are cricket fans first.
When I return to the media centre I note the stark contrast to the capacity crowd. A woman I assume to be a New Zealand media correspondent has joined Faz at the desks, and a fellow CaribbeanCricket.com message boarder who writes for CricketWeb.net has turned up with his laptop. The media is not exactly here in droves. Marie-Antoinette Mora, the Dominica Cricket Association media liaison, comes over and greets me warmly. An energetic, enthusiastic woman originally from Trinidad, she is thrilled when I speak glowingly of Dominica and how much fun watching cricket here is, and corners me for a sound bite. I'm astonished to learn that no CPL matches are scheduled for this electric place.
As the outcome of the match becomes inevitable, the band begins to tune up. The weather is perfect, a warm Caribbean breeze shooing a handful of fluffy white clouds along and the lowering sun casts an orange glow over Roseau, setting long shadows on the grass and in the streets outside. The media conference concludes with everyone saying all the right things. The visitors may have lost the match, but they will go home happy having won the Test series and drawn the T20s. The West Indies players will take the win, and they stick around for the lime. Hours later, from my room above the city, I can hear the party bumping and thumping along.
The next day, I explore Roseau in earnest. My wanderings take me to the Botanical Gardens, which are home to a modest cricket ground. A dozen or so boys from about 8 to 12 are playing tennis ball cricket under the watchful gaze of a woman who could be anyone's aunt. One of the younger boys is pelting shamelessly, and she calls out sharply, "straighten your arm, boy, I told you to straighten your arm!" I don't get her name, but she tells me that she is running a cricket academy, to get the boys ready for U-15 in a few years. One youngster, maybe 10 years old, takes a liking to the bowling. He scatters shots around the park, as his tutor picks a balance between encouragement and admonishment to play the shots on the ground. Apparently, you cannot be out caught if you hit it along the ground. I wonder to myself if I can arrange a session with her for a few of the Test players. The lesson continues. "Watch the ball! If you cannot see it, you cannot hit it". I file that away for my own use on a future weekend.
Later, as Billy joins a group of us for lunch, we talk more cricket, and football. Billy, also a former FIFA referee, is a big football fan. Liverpool. His friends call him Toshak. But he tells us if he could start all over, it would be tennis. He regales us with stories from his umpiring career over crayfish hotpot and provisions, carefully avoiding the scorpion pepper concoction our host is ladling over his own portion.
As I get a tour of the island from "Chiney" the following day, I find myself in the Carib Territory of the Kalinago people, indigenous to the island. I explore the model village, and my guide picks up on my interest in cricket and matches it with her own. She tells me that cricket, along with rounders, is the main sport of the community. There are ten teams in the territory, and four of them play T20 every weekend. It brings the community together, she informs me. Remembering Adam Sanford, I ask if he was from this area. Oh yes, she says, and turns around and points out his family's house on the outcrop behind us. I buy some freshly made hot cassava bread, which looks like Jamaican bammy to me, and move on. On the way home I admire the beautiful large cricket ground in Portsmouth, another smaller but enticing one in Macoucherie, and mentally make note. These look like good places to bring a touring side, to chase leather and fend off bouncers while wives and girlfriends soak up the island's hot springs and sulphur baths.
In fact, on the breakneck but ultimately futile attempt to catch my LIAT flight very early the next morning, our driver Irving gives me his card. He is a member of Cavaliers Cricket Club in Macoucherie, and he assures me that they would be happy to host a touring side. I make it clear that a side of over fifty year olds would be preferable, but with the suspicion that it would not much change the result. Worse, it is made clear that there will be the drinking of rum involved, and a fifty year old will be much harder to keep up with.
Irving is as big a cricket fan as anyone I've met and he knows his cricket. He has driven pretty much every regional player at once time or another, many since they were playing junior cricket. Many of them he knows well. He holds up his phone (I prefer he hold the wheel) and says, "see here? I can call Darren Sammy any time. Him and me real close". We talk West Indies cricket. Irving would like to see more selection based on runs and wickets, instead of politics. How can I disagree? Again, the issue of pride is brought up. When I admit, somewhat sheepishly, that I have not yet seen "Fire in Babylon", he nearly slows the taxi down. "My brother, you have to see this film," he tells me sternly. "Then you will understand". With little doubt that he will question me upon my inevitable return -- how can I not come back to this place? -- I determine not to disappoint him.
