…and “intangibles”
Your Eyewitness read an interesting piece in this newspaper yesterday – on the “intangibles” of cricket in general and CPL in particular. A “skulking” (playing hookey!!) professor explained how cricket brings us together within our country and together within Caricom. There’s no question about that!! Your Eyewitness was at every game up to now and he saw even the politicians who were just cussing each other out in Parliament, skinning their teeth and giving high fives when the Warriors took their winning streak onwards and upwards!!
If that isn’t unity… what is? Maybe we could have them look at one of the Warriors’ winning games, before every debate?! But, seriously folks, why isn’t cricket taken a bit more seriously to bring our people together – even when this new Government unleashed “social cohesion” as one of its goals?
The experience of South Africa and the role of Mandela in addressing the need to bring together a divided society are invoked by our politicians at the drop of a hat. Did they ever bother to check out the pride of place Mandela gave to sport in creating a new and united South African identity? They should look at the movie “Inviticus” to see how Mandela worked with the captain of the South African rugby team to bring victory to their nation. The point being that while rugby was an Afrikaans dominated sport, Mandela adopt it as his (South African) own.
Not so incidentally “Inviticus” means “undefeated” and was the title of the famous poem that ends: “It matters not how strait the gate/ How charged with punishments the scroll / I am the master of my fate, /I am the captain of my soul.” Shouldn’t our politicians remember this when they go around bowl in hand?
We all should know (and there’s another story why we don’t) from CLR James’ “Beyond The Boundary” the role cricket played to make us independent as a people. But CPL-T20 cricket goes further in giving free rein and expression to the role we played in making cricket our own. The cricket played by the British was the upper-class sport they played at Lords as they served cucumber sandwiches and tea, and nodded politely when a six was scored.
Not the way we played it – as we demonstrated that no cultural practice is ever adopted or even imposed without the “subordinate” subverting it with their own interpretation. Scholars like Dereck Walcott have expatiated on the notion of “hybridity” in our Caribbean culture.
He should write a poem when he looks at the poetry in the interplay of our cricketers and our people when they play cricket CPL-T20 style!!
…and Caricom
As usual, the Heads of Government came, they ate and they gyaafed! Forget all the pledges and resolutions made on governance…they ain’t going nowhere. Removal of the unfair advantage to TT’s manufacturers by their government selling them electricity at US$0.05 per KwH while the rest of the Region hovers at US$0.25 per KwH? Naah…Trinidad’ll say TECHNICALLY they ain’t doing nothing wrong. And you know when countries supposedly in a COMMUNITY start bringing up “technicalities”, compromise is doomed!
But your Eyewitness’s hoping against hope the HoGs will follow through with their pledge to reform the WICB. Going back to the importance of cricket in holding this region together, the HoGs can’t just leave the WICB at the mercy of the predators presently in charge. At a minimum, they have to do this by implementing the Patterson Report BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY!
After all, this didn’t mean placing the WICB in the hands of politicians – a more voracious set of predators!
…the family
In the British tabloids, “WAGS” – wives and girlfriends – of footballers became famous – but fortunately it never extended to cricket. But with CPL T20 cricket, we see the wives, girlfriends and kids of the diehard fans turning out in droves.
Cricket WiGiK?
