Miracle

By Ian McDonald

My sister, Gillian Howie, who lives with her husband Doug in a beautiful house on a cliff overlooking the ever-changing, blue-green, coral-shadowed sea on the north coast of Antigua, is a lover of West Indies cricket. She follows all our matches religiously – in every sense of the word since she believes strongly in the power of prayer and is accustomed to appeal to God and all His heavenly host for West Indies to win wherever and whenever the team plays.

The problem has been that for too long the West Indies has been losing no matter how fervent my sister’s prayers and no matter which Power she addresses. This has neither weakened her faith in the West Indies nor disillusioned her in the belief she holds in the value of prayer. She has continued to believe that the West Indies will rise again and that her prayers will be answered and that there will be a connection between the two. She had been particularly attentive in her entreaties last year during the World Cup but to no avail. Perhaps it was only that God and all his saints, at this particularly awful time in world history, must have been too busy coping with the billions of supplications. But still she felt it was just a matter of time.

Well, the time has arrived. The occasion has been the visit by Sri Lanka. The omens were not good. After a good start in South Africa the West Indies had fallen away badly and injuries to the new charismatic leader and captain Chris Gayle and to the supremely gifted but horribly fragile Ronnie Sarwan foretold a future of continuing failure. Only the extraordinary achievements of Shiv Chanderpaul, more tigerish, determined and prolific as he gets older, seemed to be capable of fending off the awful fate of sinking alongside Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in the lower reaches of the world rankings. In the meanwhile Sri Lanka was invariably a strong competitor among the top teams, got to the final of the World Cup last year and were enjoying the services of the eccentric, genius bowler Muralitharan, the only slightly less effective and talented Chaminda Vaas and Mahela Jayawardene plus a formidable bevy of new, young stars. To those knowledgeable in the game, even loyal West Indians, Sri Lanka seemed overwhelming favourites to win both the Test and ODI series in our house, thus inflicting another blow to our pride.

The omens, as I say, were not good. So my sister had her work cut out and made more vital for her in these matches. And in the first Test at the Providence Stadium events did not unfold at all well. There were flashes of good, especially from Sarwan and Bravo, but flashy is never enough and by the last day the West Indies were desperately struggling. My sister thought all might still be well and a brave stand by the stoutly resisting captain and his tail-enders gave hope. But with only five overs left the last wicket fell and the game was lost. The West Indies’ challenge had once again dismally subsided. And my sister’s, and who knows how many other West Indian, prayers had fallen on deaf ears.