The West Indies versus Pakistan one-day international series has come and gone, the Caribbean Premier League, a T20 showpiece, is two days away, and West Indians, wherever they are, should be disappointed and ecstatic as they say goodbye to one and welcome the other.
The one-day series, which ended in St Lucia on Wednesday and which was hot and cold for most of the time, was exciting some of the time. It provided brilliant cricket a few times, it was disappointing because of the action and the way the West Indies lost, and that, according to the final count, easily in the end.
The five-match series was, however, quite interesting, and with one match tied and one match going to the penultimate ball, it could really have gone either way.
With a little luck, it could have been 3-2 to the West Indies.
In the end, the contest, played between two highly unpredictable teams, ended 3-1 in favour of Pakistan with the one tied match.
You get a chance to play international cricket at 34, becoming the second-oldest debutant for your country. You are hit for six second ball. What do you do? You dismiss three key batsmen for just 23 runs. You are then called on to finish the game. With the bat. Understandably, you are tied down. But with six needed off six, you loft over extra cover for four. You think you have more than pulled your weight as a debutant. You have, but it is not over yet. It comes down to the last ball. One run needed. Everyone is in the circle. No sweat. You go big over mid-off, so big that you clear the rope. Zulfiqar Babar, welcome to international cricket.
One of the best books on sport and social change is C.L.R. James' Beyond a Boundary. James (1901-89) was a black intellectual from Trinidad whose interests were politics and cricket. Both Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary, and Learie Constantine, the great West Indian cricketer, were in his orbit.
Beyond a Boundary is a history of West Indian cricket written from a socio-political perspective. It describes how cricket came to the slave-owning societies of the Caribbean with the British Empire and became, over time, the one social medium in which people from all backgrounds met and mixed.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Friday, 26 July 2013 – Scotiabank is extending its relationship with cricket by becoming an Official Partner for the first season of the 2013 Limacol Caribbean Premier League (LCPL). The sponsorship is part of the Bank’s commitment to supporting cricket across the region.
“We are excited about becoming the official bank of the LCPL and contributing to the growth of a sport that celebrates Caribbean heritage,” said Heather Goldson, Scotiabank’s Marketing Director for the English Caribbean. “Scotiabank has had a presence in the Caribbean for more than 125 years and with Scotiabank Kiddy Cricket we have been committed to youth cricket for 14 years. This year, we are taking the game to the next level by sponsoring the LCPL T20 Tournament.”
In what has been a disappointing home season for West Indies, with the twin failures in the tri-series and a 3-1 defeat in the one-day series to Pakistan, the hosts have a chance to salvage pride in a format that hasn't let them down in recent months - Twenty20. Since winning the World T20 in Sri Lanka last year, West Indies have not dropped a single game, and with history on their side, nothing less than a 2-0 triumph will be enough to bring some cheer to their fans as the islands prepare for a brace of T20s in the form of the Caribbean Premier League, which gets underway two days after the two back-to-back games against Pakistan.
