You may think I’m making this up, but it’s true: there is something held in Spain every year called the Tomatina Festival, where a small town, Bunol, is taken over by thousands of people throwing ripe tomatoes at each other. I’m dead serious.
Apparently, it started with some angry person throwing a tomato in some celebration years ago, and someone throwing something back, and it has grown into what is now an annual tomato pelting festival. Bunol is small, only 9,000 people, but it swells to 30,000 for the Tomatina and the town is jammed. If you think I’m nuts, google Tomatina Festival and see for yourself.
I was sitting at Providence last week watching West Indies/Zimbabwe and this Tomatina Festival came into my mind. You may say the two things are not connected, but they are, and here’s why: both of those events – the tomato festival in Spain, and cricket in the Caribbean, are entrenched expressions of cultural behaviour.
The idea of thousands of people randomly throwing ripe tomatoes at each other simply for the fun of it is certainly peculiar, but this event is now part of the Spanish culture; people travel from miles to come to it, many with an extra set of clothes to change afterward, and go home delighted. It is a cultural phenomenon, as is cricket in the Caribbean.
The spontaneous frenzy in Spain is akin to what takes place practically every time a Caribbean cricket team, particularly the regional one, takes to the field. On most of those occasions, unless the team is completely out of it, it is, literally, a festival. Our cricket crowds are known worldwide as being the most exuberant and vociferous patrons of the game. The ICC tried to restrain us in one World Cup, and realized they had stubbed not only their toe, but the whole foot. This game is part of us. When we come to it, we wave flags, we play music, we shout jokes, and we dance about over a great play. We come with drums, horns, shakers, and, in recent years, big sound systems pumping out Caribbean rhythms between overs, and at high points in the game.
The extent of the devotion is astonishing. In any other country, fans would turn their backs on a consistently losing team such as the West Indies of late; not us. We’re checking TV during the day, or asking minibus drivers for the score, when the team is playing. We can’t help ourselves.
Even more revealing is how deep down this interest in the game goes. It’s not just the people’s passion for the national teams; it’s a passion for the game to the point of obsession. As at Providence, against Zimbabwe, despite West Indies’ losing record, the fans are out there oozing hope, getting excited, shouting instructions, standing up to offer comments, and you see the hold cricket has on our people and how well they know it. Their observations are usually spot on. They can spot a player’s deficiencies, bang.
As soon as Gayle pulled back and let Deonarine play, they were onto it. They would call wides even before the umpire signalled them. You would hear them identifying the critical moments in the previous match – Pollard’s soft dismissal; Smith’s reckless across-the-line voop – and you could hear the anger coming through the analyses.
They recognised bad field placement, by either side, the second it happened – “What kind of stupidness is that?” – and would be loudly pointing out to Gayle when a bowler was tiring. Caribbean fans not only follow this game, they study it. People at a cricket match will casually reel off Dwayne Bravo’s average – not just in Test cricket but ODI matches. Without consulting a book, they can tell you when Lara scored what masterpiece in what country. They will trot out famous names from bygone cricket – Robert Christiani, John Trim – as if they assume everybody knows what they know. They can tell you the batting deficiencies of most major cricketers – Gibson should listen to some of the people – and it is crystal clear to them, as it is apparently not to the folks who can do something about it, that the present West Indies Cricket Board structure needs a complete overhaul.
Caribbean people are authorities on two things: the jobs they do, and cricket.
How did we become so imbued with this game? We were introduced to all sorts of sports in the colonial years – soccer, tennis, golf, field hockey, rugby, squash, etc. – but none of those have generated the kind of devotion, bordering on mania, we find among so many people in every corner of the Caribbean. The writer CLR James has given us a partial answer to that puzzle in his various cricket writings – particularly Beyond A Boundary – which deal with cricket as drama and as appealing to our more altruistic and artistic side.
At base, cricket is not just a game we follow; it is a cultural expression. It is woven into the fabric of our lives, and that explains why we become so disconsolate when the boys in maroon lose, and why we become deliriously happy when they beat even a lowly ranked team such as Zimbabwe – you would think we had just won the World Cup.
The cultural devotion is everywhere.
You see it in the crowd at German’s Restaurant, downing soup with eyes glued to the televised match.
You hear it on a Caribbean Airlines flight to Canada, with the pilot announcing the latest score.
You see it in Georgetown on the morning of the Saturday ODI at Providence, with crowds lining up in town to buy tickets – to see Zimbabwe? Why not? Good or bad, with all the frustrations, with the litany of setbacks, it remains our game.
Here’s a small but telling microcosm of it. In the recent Providence match, in the early part of the West Indies innings, a big black woman was sitting right in front of me, with a couple of friends. Every time Zimbabwe bowled a wide, she would jump upright (this woman was big, buddy) and execute what I can only describe as a “wide dance” – arms outstretched, backside rolling, party time, making a complete circle, and then sitting down again. Better yet, on the occasion when a wide was bowled and she didn’t move, a fellow behind me shouted, “Lady, gie we de win’ nah?”
If you think this is just a sport we follow, you’re crazy. It’s our culture.