Poor turnout at the Oval

A small crowd showed up at the Oval to witness the first One Day International between West Indies and India. Most of the crowd present sat in the popular Carib Beer Stand.

The lack of spectators is a worrying trend for regional cricket with a less than capacity crowd showing up for three Twenty20s vs Pakistan recently.

Mani Bhimull from Penal believes a lack of aggressive advertising contributed to the low turnout yesterday, but said the main reason there is dismal support is because of the performance of the team. He also believes India losing in the Champions Trophy final last weekend was a factor.

Bhimull said, “The advertising was very low key, a lot of people are not even aware that this Indian team flew straight from England to come here. Smart people on the other hand, they don’t support losers. India is a loser and West Indies are very poor. It is pathetic to think about where they have reached in world cricket. It is a combination of things that are responsible for the poor turnout.” Asked if Cricket West Indies is to blame for the lack of interest in West Indies cricket, Bhimull said, “West Indian cricket is at one of its lowest for a variety of reasons; more political than anything else.

But more than that, the fellas are poor performers.” Several leading West Indies players have clashed with Cricket West Indies (formerly West Indies Cricket Board) for a variety of reasons in the recent past. One of the players who has been out of West Indies colours of late is Darren Bravo, after his controversial tweet where he called Cricket West Indies president Dave Cameron a “big idiot.” “A team has to be a concerted group of people, jelling together, but you have people here with different agendas,” Bhimull lamented.

Alicia Small from Gasparillo believes the heavy rainfall recently deterred patrons from attending the match. Small, who was at the Oval with a youth cricket team, added though that the young cricketers were disappointed that the Bravo brothers (Dwayne and Darren) were not playing. “Our kids were here and the first question they ask is ‘where Bravo?’” Tabaquite resident Kenny Woods is also not satisfied with the regional board. “The only thing that brings the West Indies together as a people is cricket, but the way those fellas running things I don’t think the people are happy. This did not happen overnight. This is something that has been going on for quite some time and this (lack of support) is the end result.” Woods says a lot of people look forward to T20 cricket and that format is keeping West Indies afloat. “People tend to look forward to the T20 because it suits our temperament. T20 have us clinging on. We have a world-beating team,” he said.