Lance Neita | Rally ‘round the West Indies

The new Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) administration opened its innings with a well-placed shot beyond the boundary to secure an international Cricket West Indies (CWI) three-match T20 series at Sabina Park, prior to the commencement of the International Cricket Council (ICC) T20 World Cup.

It’s a great start by Dr Donovan Bennett and his team as they try to restore confidence in the JCA, as well as opening the cricket landscape to welcome South Africa, a team favoured to do well in the World Cup series.

Jamaicans showed their hunger for first-class cricket by turning out in high numbers to enjoy ‘Sabina cricket’ and show their love for the Windies, in spite of the repeated let-downs and heartbreaks that have attended the game, including the absence of Jamaica from the World Cup 2024 venues.

This time the team didn’t disappoint, as they thrashed the Proteas 3-0 and roused expectations for a World Cup podium finish on Saturday, June 8.

The CWI has also announced that South Africa will later return to the West Indies for a two-match Test series in August, followed by three more T20s.

The Test matches will take place in Trinidad and Guyana, while all the remaining white-ball games will be played in Trinidad.

But there is still much work to be done by the JCA. England will visit the West Indies in November, but guess what? Jamaica will be left out of that series, and so we will not see international cricket again until late this year when we play Bangladesh in a Test match from November 30 to December 4.

CRICKET REVIVAL

Sabina Park needed the cricket revival enjoyed last weekend to get back to first-choice status for tours and to send those upstart football matches and dancehall parties back to where they belong. What is good for Sabina is good for the country, as the Park is a shrine to fans worldwide, a place of pilgrimage for the diaspora, and a sacred memorial to the ghosts of cricketers past.

As much as Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines will boast of their days in the sun, our Sabina is still the Mecca where all Test tours to the Caribbean once opened and closed their series.

So come on JCA and the Ministry of Sport. And come on Jamaica Tourist Board, make some noise, or haven’t you seen the promotion blitz being enjoyed by our Caribbean neighbours out of this international cricket spectacle?

Cricket at Sabina has a tradition and a rhythm that starts on Camp Road with the guys who try to squeeze you into those impossible makeshift parking lots. Also, the familiar and friendly touts who seem to have grown up with the game and inherited the mantle of the old-time Kingston ‘trickpockets’.

On your way into the grounds, you pause to make a lunch date with the lady and her pot of cow-cod soup at the Emerald Road corner. Then once you are inside, you are greeted by the well-laid-out stands against the background of the spectacular Blue Mountains in the distance, and the green bowl beneath waiting on the traditional run up from the southern end, be it a Wes Hall, Gilchrist, Holding, Roberts, Garner, Walsh, or a Malcolm Marshall.

The three-day series may not compensate for the loss of World Cup cricket from our shores but at least we got a chance to preview our West Indies team and the South Africans who were at number four in the ICC T20 rankings behind India, Australia, England in that order, with West Indies at number six behind New Zealand at number five.

With all due respect to the previous administration for their foundation work and administrative skills, Dr. Bennett as a soldier in the field will bring to the table the vision and the passion for which he is well known.

With more than 40 years of dedication to cricket, he is sharp minded and bold and is never afraid to zero in on weak points or failing grades.

Parish administrations that may have fallen asleep or become complacent with a president-for-life syndrome will have to wake up.

EMBRACE EVERYONE

Cricket must embrace everyone by becoming attractive not only by skills and achievements but by displaying behaviour and class.

Players must conduct themselves as role models and as ambassadors for their schools, communities, parishes and the nation.

In earlier days parish cricket board members wore suits to meetings and to matches when their team was playing. The parish and the national teams wore blazers and posed for formal photographs which were published in the press. A match would take a lunch break and tea break in a room with both teams seated around a table. Nowadays we discredit the importance and the standards attached to the sport when cricketers in a final are fed from a box and sent to eat under a tree.

Regardless of modern trends which have taken a downward slide, cricket, of all the sports, is still a gentleman’s game with a code of behaviour that can make it a pleasure to watch and enjoy.

Restoring cricket is not just beating the pants off Australia or India. But mastering the social aspects and techniques beyond the boundary while making our way back to the top of the ratings.

Meanwhile prepare for weeks of soul searching at home while the games get going in the USA and the selected Caribbean venues.

It will be painful to surrender to ‘watch only’ status but let’s forego the gnashing of teeth and rally ‘round the West Indies. All eyes on reaching the finals in Barbados on a journey that started in Jamaica, at Sabina.

Lance Neita is a public relations specialist and author. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and lanceneita@homail.com