A week in the life of WI cricket

 Saturday: Another amusing morning watching the West Indies Cricket Board nominees flailing around outside the doors of several regional Boards. Haven’t  laughed this much since . . . well, the last time I saw big men reduced  to mice to win a seat to be honest. You lot from Jamaica are even worse  than those from Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago and in all of  this, nobody cares that we are still losing.  Later I stayed up all night  to watch Jamaica lose to Trinidad and Tobago at football. You see, in this part of the world, it is worth missing a couple of hours sleep to see the national team take part in a sporting event.

Sunday: Mixed day. Deryck Murray  looked a bit useful. I think the Jamaicans were surprised to be facing a Trini who understands that you can improve  your voting figures by aiming at the stumps dead on and speaking the  truth. Apart from that, all of us West Indians were delighted to see a certain Jamaican  in the canvassing room. It should cement his place in  the losing team. Good news for the Bajans. Now if we could only come up with a way of getting rid of Ricky Skerrit  and getting Clive Lloyd  recalled . . .

Monday: A ripper of a day as our boys get ahead as the voting gets heated for the Presidency. In the Red Stripe Bowl cricket between the Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, it was particularly satisfying to see a young umpire, my fellow Trini umpire, getting a win over the Barbados team on  his senior debut. That puts him in a very exclusive club (759 members  and counting). I had coached him intensively before the match: “If it’s  Wallace,” I advised, “give him out.”

Tuesday: Had to chuckle at the newspapers, which had the headline Rabbit Stew above a mock picture of Richard De Souza, Val Banks and Stephen Alleyne looking like bunnies. Had to explain the joke to my kids, though. Myxomatosis has got a lot to answer for.

Wednesday: It’s been a bit dull having to wait around for the next dinner meeting of the various two parties vying for the Presidency of the WICB, the Jamaicans are eating lobster on the current WICB account, while the Bajans are having a roti and Solo on the account of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board of Control. With all of this I popped down to the nets to watch the Trinidad and Tobago team preparing for their crucial match against a Select X11 . Roland Sampath  had them out practising  their fielding and they dropped more balls than a classroom of pubescent schoolboys. Roll on Guyana.

Thursday: Compulsory net practice before start of play for all tail-end batsmen on  the Trinidad and Tobago  team — from No 3 downwards. Darren Ganga was  given 12 pegs to practice with and Marlon Black  got his net up second. Mervyn Dillon  beat Black by 43 seconds, but they left Ravi Rampaul wondering why he had four pegs left over.

Friday: I had a clear view of the Michael Holding run-out vote from the boundary where I was signing autographs for Dancing Brave fans and adjusting my  sunglasses. He was definitely out on a limb for his Jamaican  counterparts by a good three inches. Actually, Tony Cozier also must take some blame in the showroom afterwards for being behind the voting patterns of Holding and thereby obstructing the camera’s view of the entire situation given his increasing weight growth. He’s been told that  if he gets in the proper position again he will be sent to the Courtney Walsh School of fielding.

Saturday: What a proud day for us all. Trinidad and Tobago  lost by less than 100 runs and our last five wickets put on an incredible 38 runs. It was tough out there, but we deserved our moment of glory and the lap of  honour was one of those spontaneous gestures all sportsmen do when  things have gone their way. It is a pity all of the administrators were busy lobbying votes, that there was no one present to do any  presentations.

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