With the final bat to ball and wickets and overs to spare, CPL Cricket 2024 is over. For some, the closest they got to the Providence Stadium and how they enjoyed cricket season was with a bottom house, side-street, any-accommodating-green-space/open-space game of bat and ball. Poking ball or lashing for six with complete intention. For others, it was through a screen and glorious yelps – “Six!” “Out!” “He gone!” “He gone, gone, gone!” Anticipation – “dem boys gon do it!” Until, they didn’t! And for others, perhaps disinterested or unable to bear the emotional ride of the game – dashed hopes and quieted enthusiasm even in its shortened format, it was by way of a display of imaginatively transformed cricket bats in the art exhibition Bat and Ball.
Bat and Ball was a few months in the making beginning with a Call for Artists to transform simple bats and later a similar Call for Photographers was added. Both calls were open without restriction. As a consequence, the exhibition showcased responses from known and lesser-known artists. Perhaps some were students. Also, as a consequence of the open call, artists who may not have been invited, if participation was by invitation only, were able to participate. As a result, the responses to the call were eclectic and unpredictable. Not surprisingly, some artists evoked scenes of cricket: Uniformed cricketers at the crease; youth cricketers presumably in the Rupununi’s expansive space with an improvised wicket; a solitary youth standing beside a three-stump wicket, bat slung over the shoulder, ball in mid-air on a return to his hand.