After the IPL razzmatazz, cricket in Caribbean feels like a return to values and some semblance of normality.
So it finally got underway. All that huffing and puffing from an Icelandic volcano with a ridiculously unpronounceable name came to nothing in the end for the ICC World Twenty20 Cricket Tournament in the Caribbean. Or was it not so much a volcanic plume of ash as it was a smokescreen for all the bad things allegedly happening in the world of cricket?
Yes, the latest T20 cricket event started on schedule, just days after India’s big T20 party finished with its usual glitz, fireworks and razzmatazz in Mumbai, one of the world’s most happening cities.
The cricket caravan slipped out of Mumbai, a city of 12 million people, to Georgetown, Guyana, a city of barely a quarter of a million people, located on the north-eastern coast of South America, and the starting venue for the latest cricketing jamboree.
This is my first visit to Guyana and, knowing what went on in India for the past six weeks, this former Dutch, Spanish, French and British colonial outpost could not be further removed from the modern game's hi-tech world, but it is — for me — a return to values and some semblance of normality.
The Guyana National Stadium, or Providence Stadium, on the outskirts of Georgetown, which launched the 2010 ICC World Twenty20, was purpose-built for the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2007 (50 over version) but lessons have been learned from the tedious cricket event of three years ago, which not only saw India fail to make the Super Eight stage, but also rendered the local cricket fans an audience of silent witnesses. All drums, horns, trumpets and whatever else makes a West Indian cricket fan gyrate with beautiful rhythm to the music during a cricket match were banned by the authorities. It was like telling an opera fan to sit on a shooting-stick for a full Puccini opera.
The inflated ticket prices are also consigned to history for this event and it all means that the real flavour of Caribbean cricket is seen and heard. Unseasonable rain fell on what could have been a fabulous contest between West Indies and England, and we had a ridiculously shortened version of a match, but it did not dampen any of the amazing spirits of the Guyanese cricket fans who turned up in numbers to watch their national heroes. You don't just watch a game in the Caribbean — you feel it in every ounce of your blood — so much so that I found myself smiling in appreciation at everything that was going on around me.
It is different from watching a cricket match in India. No one is on the lookout for so-called celebrities; people are in the stadium because they want to watch a cricket match and while they watch it they want to have fun. And do they have fun! Barack Obama could have walked into the ground and he wouldn’t have earned any more applause than the fantastic drum quartet who kept the main stand entertained throughout the entire day.
This is the real heartbeat of cricket. The game’s custodians must preserve all that goes on here in Guyana and it must never allow it to lose its place in the psyche of the cricket fan or the cricket administrator. To watch a cricket match in Guyana is one of the most uplifting experiences I can share with you; it is special, it is part of the game’s history and it must be part of the game's future.
Barbados and Saint Lucia are exotic names and truly exotic places on the world's map, but they are also part of the Caribbean cricketing fabric. The world's best male and female cricketers are here and they will hopefully realise that there is a world of cricket far removed from the schmaltz that has coloured the game in recent weeks.
In between match days I was fortunate enough to take a flight in a light aircraft to one of the most beautiful waterfalls on Mother Earth — the Kaieteur Falls in Guyana — a truly moving experience and, at the same time, quite terrifying when I think of the vast Amazon rainforest over which we flew for an hour just to get to this natural wonder.
The unspoilt grandeur of the Kaieteur Falls has a presence in the rainforest that man will never be able to change. Cricket in the West Indies also has a place in our natural world that we should never change. To be here is a reminder that we should not only respect the beauty of the most natural things around us, but we should nurture their place in a modern world that changes all too frequently with worrying repercussions.
West Indian cricket has a natural beauty that our modern game needs to look after and cherish, and — if I sound a little altruistic when I say this, please forgive me — but the pursuit of happiness for those who have cricket’s interests at heart here in the Caribbean is something to which a financial tag does not apply.
ALAN WILKINS is a TV broadcaster for ESPN Star Sports. His column Inside Edge appears on this page every alternate Sunday
