DAY 3 , SATURDAY 5TH APRIL, 2008

SPORTS: FEARLESS IN THE BOX – DAY THREE ( SATURDAY 5^TH APRIL, 2008) – of the 2^nd Test Match between the West Indies and India

 

By Andre E Baptiste

 

                  ----- SAY A PRAYER FOR WEST INDIES ON SUNDAY ----

 

Benjai’s West Indian anthem “Fed up of the same thing, over and over “comes to mind………………

There was urgency though in the air at the start of Day 3, and it was not only the Sri Lankan team or our West Indians who sensed the rare smell of victory for both teams. This on paper was supposed to be another victory for the third ranked test team over the lesser lights of an eight placed West Indian team.

Like Melville’s ocean or twain’s Mississippi, cricket calls to a young man. But ON Saturday, yet again, there were only a handful of West Indian supporters. Its victims are not only those who forfeit their wits and dive into the cricket arena. The sport obviously also seduces writers, too, dragging them down with its powerful undertow of testosterone. Many die a hideous literary death, drowning in their own hyperbole. Only a few – CLR James, Michael Manley, Earl Lovelace and Samuel Selvon – cross to safety. Awash in all that blood of cricket pulling at your every movement, they become buoyant.

For most people in the wider world, outside the ten test playing nations, however, cricket makes no sense.

Even in the Caribbean in some areas, this sport that once defined the region now seems archaic, like jousting or pistols at six paces. The uninitiated, the cultivated, the educated don’t accept that cricket has existed possibly since the time of the pharaohs.

Perhaps one of the problems is that cricket concedes one musky truth about masculinity: hitting a man with a cricket ball is sometimes the most satisfying response to being a man. Disturbing maybe, but there it is.

Some of us on Day three of a compelling test match go through life feeding the athlete inside with weekend-warrior games of touch rugby, season tickets to test matches and pro league football, tailgate parties and war stories of what it was like to play any sport.

A lead of 75 to 100, we asked for on Friday, but Sri Lanka led by the wily Muralitharan restricted the lead to a meager (it seemed) 16 runs.

The small crowd sighed and prepared for a Sri Lanka onslaught, but for the first time in this two test series, both Sri Lanka openers (Vandort and Warnapura) feel cheaply and a stunned into silence crowd, blinked twice, because by the end of over number two, the score read – Sri Lanka 4 for 2 (trailing by 16 on first innings, not to be forgotten).

When their two star batsmen Jayawardene and Sangakkara fell in consecutive overs to Fidel Edwards and Darren Powell, the Sri Lanka score stood at 32-4.

Now the word spread and by lunch time , the Queens Park oval was awash with more fans than before, at 99-6 , the smell of victory seem to have caused Captain Chris Gayle to become over intoxicated and then it happen…

Poor fielding, errant bowling, blind umpiring ( Thilan Samaraweera was as plump LBW  of Dwayne Bravo as anyone , I have seen even from the stands but Billy Bowden of the crocked finger thought otherwise), loss of composure and finally the fight was being extinguished and we were all settling down to what we know – worse cricket from the West Indies.

The beneficiaries , 31 year old Thilan Samaraweera ( with a test average of 41 , punished the West Indies with his sixth test century ) and  Chaminda Vaas , together , their seventh wicket partnership of  138 , may prove to be the telling point in this close contest.

Day 4, Sunday, will need some heroic batting from the West Indies on a weary surface to chase this now daunting total .

 If you are in Church this morning – SAY A PRAYER FOR THE WEST INDIES -.

By the way, the man I don’t trust, still has not called, maybe he too is FED UP.

 

:: AB