Off field cricket holds most attention

THE battle lines are drawn. This is a crucial Test match, both teams are all square. But it is the cricket off the field that has held the attention of a daring and caring public. I’m sitting in a hotel room at the Marriot Hotel, Invaders Bay, waiting for a call from a man who doesn’t trust me, hoping he’ll have answers about a man I don’t trust, which may clear the name of a man no one gives a damn about. To distract myself from this uneasy vigil — and from the phone that never rings, and from the rain that never stops pelting the window — I light a cigar and open horseracing papers and reflected.

Life is about challenges and today, there will be a lot of challengers.The returning West Indian players will be challenged to perform exceedingly high, given the performance of the team in the First Test. Specifically though a lot of pressure will be on Brian Charles Lara, because the First Test team demonstrated they can produce quality runs without the double world record holder. Make no mistake, Lara is aware of the challenge and the fact that his cricketing days may come to an end in less than three years. His goal to score 3000 more Test runs and at least ten more Test centuries is burning a hold in his heart. The great left-hander missed an opportunity in Guyana and will not want to lose another opportunity in his hometown.

But his absence from competitive cricket since early February and his perennial wrist problem (which require medical treatment) will place the odds against him, but Lara is a gambler and I hasten to say, he has won more than lost of late. An old cricket hand once said. “You never learn anything until you’re tired,” and by that criterion I’m capable of learning plenty right now. Because I have been waiting over two hours for this person. Amidst all the problems off the field, there is one voice that has remained silent, perhaps too silent; Sir Gary Sobers is arguably the greatest cricketer that ever lived.

But he is now an employee of the West Indies Cricket Board and has been utilised in advertisements promoting — Digicel. Some say that there are two of him these days, there is the nearly mythic figure with his obligation to his legend, and there is the man with his uncertainties. The legend’s visage smiles down on him from posters and T-shirts. The man has a back on the mend and a brown splotch in the middle of his forehead and hair that has gone silver all over. History will show that there are similarities in the character of both these great players Sobers and Lara.

For that reason, it must have pained the beloved Barbadian to watch as his “walking shadow” found himself on the wrong side of the West Indies Cricket Board. Sobers has in the distant past  found himself at odds  with the West Indies Cricket Board , both as a player and after his playing days were over. Sobers and Lara,  two great cricketers , history will record, but also their collective careers will have been soiled by — perception — a lot of it negative , rather than fact, for that, they both must shoulder a lot of the blame. Silence is not golden, but instead convicting.

Let us also hope that this year, the local media will not have to face similar challenges to 2004 with the press box arrangements, it is my understanding that strong steps have been taken to alleviate these seating mishaps of 2004. It is now, incumbent upon the local media to follow the procedures and arrive not only alive but in time. The West Indies have the ascendancy, their confidence must be high, but cricket is a funny game and South Africa under pressure will be a dangerous animal. May the Fearless Force be with the West Indies team. Oh , by the way, I am still here waiting.