In this week’s edition of In Search of West Indies Cricket, Roger Seymour concludes his cricket match from the 1980s in the form of a play. The cricket data and references are factual, and the banter is the writer’s imagination.
Act Four: Scene One
Visitors’ Dressing Room
Alan Smith glances at the invitation for the umpteenth time, and decides against revealing its contents to the team. It had been delivered to their hotel last evening, and he had initially thought it was a joke of some kind, but the British High Commissioner had assured him shortly after, at Sir Sydney Gun-Munro’s reception, that it was authentic and it was the experience of a lifetime.
Boycott and Gooch depart to open the innings, keeping their thoughts to themselves, both know that this is the opportunity of a lifetime, to make amends for the 1979 World Cup final at Lord’s.
Roberts opens the bowling from the Bequia end, while Holding starts at the Airport end. After one over, Croft replaces Holding.
Act Four: Scene Two
Scorecard
G Boycott c Mattis b Croft 2
G A Gooch c Lloyd b Roberts 11
P Willey c D Murray b Croft 0
D I Gower not out 1
R O Butcher c D Murray b Croft 1
Fall of wickets: 1-14 (Boycott), 2-14 (Willey), 3-14 (Gooch),
4-15 (Butcher).
Roland Orlando Butcher was born in Barbados and emigrated to England in 1967. He was the first post-World War II West Indian to represent England at cricket. It’s his first trip back to the Caribbean and his first international innings lasts all of four balls. The walk back to the pavilion seems like an eternity and is indelibly stamped in his memory, but the noise… Thirty-five minutes after the English innings began in serene conditions, the Playing Field is bedlam. Everyone is standing, jumping, every man is now a percussionist, umbrellas wave, calypso blares, rum flows like water. Pandemonium has broken loose.
Dr John: La Soufriere [referring to the island’s volcano] is erupting in the human form here. My Oh My!!! What a game and here comes the English captain Ian Botham.
Gower (smiling): Beefy to the rescue!
Botham (grins and in his best Yorkshire accent): Let’s get on with it, David. Just another day at the office.
Gower (laughing): You sound just like Raymond [Illingworth].
Botham (Yorkshire accent): You are the only bleeping person that refers to him as Raymond. Everyone I ever met, including the White Rose Committee [Boycott, Bairstow, Stevenson and Old are all Yorkshiremen] says Ray or Illy or Skipper. Damn it! Let’s murder this wimp bowling and silence this bloody crowd!
Gower (laughing hysterically): Now, now Closey [Close].
Gower and Botham saunter off to their respective ends, reflecting on the two Yorkshire icons who had switched counties, and under whose captaincy their careers had been mentored; the former at Leicestershire under the cerebral watch of Illingworth, the latter under the ferocious charge of current selector, Brian Close at Somerset.
Act Four: Scene Three
After an hour’s play there is a water break
Botham: They are bowling an excellent line and their fielding is unbelievable.
Gower: Yes, that Bacchus chap in the ice hockey goalkeeper’s helmet is everywhere. One minute he is at short leg, then he is at short cover, then square of the wicket. It’s like if they have cloned him. I guess that he is only playing because of Gordon’s [Greenidge] bad back.
Botham: We can’t take any chances with him, he’s like lightning. Last summer he stole that Test from us at Trent Bridge, running out Goochie by the shortest of hairs.
Gower: No. I cost us that match when I dropped Roberts near the end.
Botham: No, no, the tide turned with that run out.
Gower: So, who is their fifth bowler? Would’ve been Vivi [Richards], if he was here, I guess.
Botham: Yeah, he had something urgent to attend to. It’s probably Lloyd or Mattis, I doubt whether Clive would even consider Kalli[charran] here. We hammered the hell out of him at Edgbaston [Birmingham, Warwickshire] last September in the final match of the John Player [Sunday League]. We won that game, finished tied with them on eleven wins, and lost the bloody title because Kent had tied a game with Warwicks earlier on in the season.
Gower: Beefy, I have been on the county circuit since ‘75, a year after you, and the first time I ever saw Kalli bowl was last May, at Grace Road [Leicestershire]. It was their [West Indies] second game of the tour, and they bowled us out for 99 in the first. Baldy [Chris Balderstone] and I were making a game of it in our second knock, we put on close to a hundred when he comes on for one over and clean bowls him. In a solitary over he changed the course of the match, we lost by an innings inside two days.
Botham: Now you mention it, the first time I can recall Kalli bowling was at Old Trafford [Third Test] last summer. I think he even delivered a couple overs at the Oval [Fourth Test] too. Can you believe this, David? Clive and Kalli are discussing field placements, he is the… …………………
Alvin Kallicharran, a left-hand, middle-order batsman, playing his 31st ODI, is the fifth bowler. His right arm off spin has been previously requested in only three ODIs, and his 7.3 overs cost 39 runs. His quota here will be 10 overs.
Gower and Botham settle down and concentrate on picking up singles and the occasional twos, fours are a rarity. The scoreboard ticks along. The lefty/righty partnership creeps to fifty and the crowd, which has simmered down, warmly applauds. The modern-day privateers host a mid-pitch conference which centres around their swords.
Gower: I’m proud of you. You actually hit a four off Holding with that Duncan Fearnley bat of yours.
Botham: When are you going to get a real bat that isn’t scooped at the back? Is that the Gray-Nicolls Public Schools’ school boy Edition? (Laughing).
Gower attended the King’s School in Canterbury, Kent, a public school founded in 597AD, which is thought to be the oldest continuously operating school in the world.
Gower (mockingly): Does Duncan even know where those willows come from? Nicolls has been hand-making bats since 1876. It is said the Slade-Lucas XI brought a couple here in 1895.
Botham (laughing): No wonder everyone wants The Dunc these days, Gray’s must still have stock left over from World War I. Kalli is pushing a quicker one through at the start of the over, and his slower ball is well disguised, can’t figure out if it is turning or going straight.
Gower: His left shoulder drops slightly when it’s the slower, straight one. There’s your lefthander’s advantage.
………………….
Bloefeld: The score is 80 for 4, as Kallicharran starts another over from the Bequia end. He bowls to Gower who essays a casual dri… and he’s OUUTT! HE’S OUT! Gower is gone! Haynes scooping the catch low down at extra-cover. After playing so well for 23, Gower has a momentary lapse in concentration, just when the partnership was getting on cruise control. England 80 for 5.
Act Four: Scene Four
Croft begins his second spell
Gatting is bowled by a leg-cutter for 3, 88 for 6. Wicketkeeper Bairstow joins his captain.
Botham (grinning with his Yorkshire accent): Evening lad, we can piss this!
Bairstow bursts out laughing as he meanders to the striker’s end, remembering those were the exact words he had greeted Stevenson with in Sydney, Australia, the previous winter, with England 129 for 8, chasing 163. The Yorkshire duo had duly complied, as England won with an over to spare, with Stevenson getting 28 off 18 balls.
Croft then bowled Bairstow for 5, with the score on the dreaded ‘Nelson’ 111, [superstitious belief that it resembles a wicket without bails, denoting the fall of a wicket] the most feared number in English cricket. Soon after…
Reds: …And he’s out!! Botham hanging his bat, the ball taking the outside edge and Murray behind the stumps gleefully accepting the catch. Just when Captain Botham seemed all set to bring this one home, the tide turns again, Kenneth.
Dr John: What a game, Reds! The crowd has gone wild again, this most beautiful scene is bursting with energy. Oh my goodness! This is cricket at its best! Botham fell to one from Croft that moved away from him. His fabulous knock of 60, his highest ODI score ever, came off of 108 balls and lasted 153 minutes, and included five 4’s. England 114 for 8.
The tension mounts, as Emburey and Stevenson garner nine precious runs in 18 minutes. Holding shatters Emburey’s stumps with the last ball of the 47th over. England 123 for 9.
Cozier: Holding walks back to his mark, 11 deliveries left in this incredible match, no one dares to leave, the fielders move in, a hush settles over the crowd, as Holding glides in, gathering steam, past the umpire, AND he’s bowled him! Old is cleaned bowled. That was a bullet! The West Indies have won! The West Indies have WON by two runs. The crowd has spilled onto the field, the human Soufriere is flowing everywhere.
Act Five: Scene One
Chatoyer inches the coach gingerly forward in the direction of the E T Joshua Airport. It appears that the entire population of St Vincent was at the match; people are everywhere. The All Stars Steelband is playing Merchant’s “Umbayao” and the crowd is shouting the chorus, and dancing in the streets. The players next to the open windows are signing everything proffered, scraps of paper, programmes, dollar bills, sunhats. The coach pulls into the airport as a LIAT Hawker Siddeley HS 748 airplane is landing.
Smith: What does LIAT stand for Chatoyer?
Chatoyer: It depends on who you ask. The airline says it means’ Leeward Islands Air Transport’. In Barbados, they say ‘luggage in another territory’, here we say ‘leaving island any time’.
The coach stops in front of the Mustique Airways Cessna. The players descend from the coach.
The pilot: Welcome aboard, gentlemen. No one from the press is allowed and please leave your cameras with your driver.
.
Act Five: Scene Two
Mustique Island.
The sun is setting on the runway on Mustique Island. Two rows of Land Rovers, parked about 20 feet apart, flank the sides of the runway
The King: Murphy was right. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Bloody seaplane gets here then wouldn’t start! Bacchus, the God of Wine is playing for the islands. What a bloody day! Do you have enough cod pieces for those bloody losers?!
Basil: Yes, Sir. There were some gold ones left over from your coronation. I have been thinking that you need some horses or ponies here on the island, Sir.
The King: Terrific idea! How about llamas from Peru? I got it, Basil. Basil I got it! Camels from Morocco. I have a pal from school who has a carpet business in the Kasbah in Marrakesh. I will write to him and enquire about shipping some camels here. How about some belly dancers?
The drone of an approaching aircraft from the north pierces the rapidly vanishing sunset. Basil toots the horn and ten pairs of lights suddenly illuminate the asphalted runway.
The King: Here come those good for nothing flannelled fools. They couldn’t even make 127 measly runs.
Basil turns his face to the driver’s window, lest the King notice his concerted efforts to suppress his glowing smile at the West Indian victory.
Act Five: Scene Three
Umpires Archer and Mohammed are having dinner at the Sunset Shores Hotel
Archer: I can’t remember calling a wide in the England innings. Did you?
Mohammed: No. There were no wides nor no balls. The West Indian bowlers were perfect. I can’t ever remember seeing Kalli bowl before, and Croft’s figures – Nine overs, four maidens, fifteen runs, six wickets!
Archer: Lloyd performed a miracle with those bowling changes. Did you think we were going to be out there for almost 49 overs?
Act Five: Scene Four
Parking Lot, Sunset Shores Hotel
Chatoyer returns to the coach after dropping off Smith’s and Butcher’s cameras at the desk. He sits in the middle of the coach, opens his bag and tenderly removes the bottle of rum. He reads the label slowly: Sunset, St Vincent, very strong rum. He cracks the seal, and gingerly pours a shot in his coffee mug, and raises it to the ceiling. He begins to mutter in Patois, just like his great-grandmother would do whenever she was angry with ‘those British people,’ whilst insisting that she was a Black Carib with a dash of French blood:
Chatoyer: “Ayèl Marie! Jòdi-a nou wimèt lanmò Chatoyer. An wépons nou pwan tèt dis Anglè! Viv la Garifuna!” (Great-grandmother Marie! Today we avenged the death of Chatoyer. We captured the heads of ten Englishmen in return! Long Live the Garifuna!)
Garifuna drummers are heard in the distant night. The Spirit of Chatoyer lives on.
……………………………………….
Notes
* The Playing Field continues to be featured on everyone’s list of the Most Beautiful Cricket Grounds in the world.
* Gower and Botham were the Golden Boys of English Test cricket in the 80s. Later, they worked together as commentators on Sky Sports TV.
* Kallicharran never wore a West Indian cap again. His returns in the match were 10-3-25-1.
* David Archer stood in 28 Test matches and was the West Indian representative in the 1987 World Cup, the first major trial of independent umpires. He was also a publican and ran the Umpires Inn in Barbados. He passed away in 1992.
* Sadique Mohammed stood in three Test matches and seven ODIs.
* La Soufriere [French: sulphur outlet], the highest peak on St Vincent and an active volcano with eruptions in 1718, 1812, 1902, 1971 and 1979 has been relatively quiet as of late. The 1902 eruption killed 1,680 people, destroying the last large remnant of Carib culture.
* The King of Mustique was ‘coronated’ in 1976 by Princess Margaret (Queen Elizabeth’s sister), who was a property owner on Mustique and regular visitor. Colin Tennant, 3rd Baron of Glenconner died in August, 2010, aged 83, on the island of St Lucia, where he had moved to in 1992. He was the last of an old-fashioned breed, titled, moneyed and eccentric. In his own words, “Mustique was an invention, like Treasure Island.” He bequeathed to his faithful valet, a St Lucian, his tropical estate thought to be worth £20,000,000.
* The West Indies ODI record at the Playing Field reads: 18 wins, 4 losses, one tie. WI won 13 consecutive matches from March, 1994 to May, 2004.
* Chatoyer is still alive in St Vincent. Today, he is a member of an International Conservation group and always wears a white t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan, “Stop Whale Hunting, Start Whale Watching.”
* The writer would like to acknowledge the assistance of former West Indies wicketkeeper and Combined Island captain Mike Findlay.
Trivia question: The names of the West Indies XI are scattered in the article. Can you name the complete XI, (first and last names – careful here) in the correct batting order?
