Tale of Two Teams: Warriors vs Windies Cricketers

[sin]

Source: George John in The Express


Amazingly, no one of deviant personality, or otherwise, has yet attempted (I am writing this on Monday afternoon) to scramble on to the bandwagon created by Trinbago's marvellous double triumph on the regional cricket field in the same way we reacted to the World Cup soccer performance.

It might be argued that this would be like comparing a bikini costume seen in a Port of Spain Carnival band with a trikini (sunhat, sunglasses and sandals) spotted on the beach at Ipanema.

The Ipanema performance, most polls might suggest, would win a wider audience just as internationally football does over cricket. For soccer is played in the four corners of the earth and in between, while cricket is confined to countries with a British Commonwealth inheritance.

And even though the people of Trinidad and Tobago love their cricket, chances are numerically they are more addicted to Carnival, bikini costume and all, from jouvert to last lap.

Yet we cannot deny we are a cricketing country, more rural these days than urban. But the players are there and the grounds are there and the play's the thing.


There remains, however, something uncanny about the vast silence in the wake of this country's triumph in the Carib Beer Championship that has come on top of the triumph in the knockout series. A plus, of course. Trinidad, once the kingpin of West Indies cricket (remember Constantine, the Stollmeyers, "Beef" Grell, Prior Jones and Lance Pierre and Tyrell Johnson, Andy Ganteaume) had not won the championship for 25 years.

We made a loud noise when our footballers returned from Bahrain not with the World Cup in hand, for we have to wait till June to see if we are going to win it but with enough prestige to link us up with soccer playing stars from Brazil, England, Germany, Spain and other countries.

Reception followed reception, Prime Minister Manning and CONCACAF's Jack Warner came close to playing "hansy pansy'' in public, and if the crowds had had their way each player would have been awarded on the spot the Trinity Cross, a lot of land in an exclusive area and with a house on it.

By contrast there was no such display of national rejoicing when our cricketers finished their mopping up of Barbados at Guaracara Park. Granted the crowd erupted and the players joined in circling the playing field when the last run was scored.

But nothing since and it may have something to do with the lack of a national identification gimmick of the kind that has been associated with our footballers.

Our national footballers have come to be known as the "Soca Warriors". With each new triumph on the soccer field the title has won greater prominence. I suppose one may now say it anywhere and the hearer would know the talk is about Trinidad and the subject football.

The slogan has given players and public the sort of rallying cry that encourages enthusiasm on and off the field and indeed unites people who may be opponents politically or in employer-employee relationships in the work place.


"Soca Warriors" has so embedded itself into the society at large that when the team returned home from Bahrain a feeble attempt was made by one who should have known better to propose incorporation of "Chutney", our other major music source, into the title. This nincompoop suggested our soccer players should be known as the "Chutney Soca Warriors", or perhaps it was the "Soca Chutney Warriors.

Nobody of any consequence took him on. But the fellow might well try again using the regional cricket triumph as encouragement to turn his attention to the gentleman's game to bring himself back under the spotlight.

There was a time when West Indies cricket ruled the world, not merely winning but playing the game with spirit and enthusiasm and skill, whereupon English cricket writers dubbed our men calypso cricketers who played calypso cricket.

West Indies cricket is at this time toeing the line that leads to anything but soca, or chutney or calypso cricket. We can't find a way to negotiate the passage between the predatory sponsors. Perhaps if we decided to hail our future Test teams "Chutney Batters and Bowlers" the players might realise what stupidees they are making of themselves.

[kounty]

yuh see what does happen when men ent have nuttin to write...they does put out articles like this, jus so the bossman cyah say he ent write nuttin.  A more equal comparison would be winning the caribbean cup - football as opposed to cricket.  Let West INdes win that world cup (cricket) next year and I could bet equal pandemonium in Port of Spain.