Pe­ter Ray Blood

"Any­thing you can do, I can do bet­ter. Any­thing you can do, I can do bet­ter than you" goes the old rhyme, and it al­so en­dors­es the achieve­ments of the West In­dies women's crick­et team, as op­posed to their male coun­ter­parts. In fact, based on their per­for­mance this past week, it seems that the women's team is more cav­a­lier and en­ter­pris­ing than the men, but need a lot more phys­i­cal sup­port from the fans. His­to­ry was cre­at­ed in the Queen's Park Oval, Port-of-Spain last Sun­day, when the re­gion­al women's crick­et team played its first ever match in T&T, com­ing up against Sri Lan­ka in the third of a five-match T20 en­counter. Com­pe­tent­ly led by Trinida­di­an wick­et­keep­er Maris­sa Aguil­era, the women ex­e­cut­ed a pre­ci­sion-like beat­ing on the vis­i­tors, the star of the game be­ing top-scor­er of the match Guyanese She­maine Camp­belle. At press time, the WI women, up 3–1, lost Mon­day's by a wick­et, and was sched­uled to play the fifth and fi­nal game of the se­ries. Sit­ting in the Carib Stand with young pub­lish­er Shari John and the girls of Moo­sai Sports team, what irked me on a rain-drenched, sog­gy Sun­day af­ter­noon was the lack of tan­gi­ble mar­ket­ing and pro­mo­tion in T&T for this his­toric se­ries.

As I bad-mouthed the WICB for this dis­re­spect for the women's match the next day, one of my sports desk col­leagues tried to ex­on­er­ate the Caribbean crick­et boss­es by claim­ing that it is the lo­cal crick­et au­thor­i­ties who are the lack­adaisi­cal ones. On the week­end, al­most every­one I'd pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned the match and se­ries to watched me in be­muse­ment, ques­tion­ing what I was speak­ing about. The best kept se­cret in sport was these three days of en­ter­tain­ing crick­et at the Mec­ca of crick­et in Trinidad. On Sun­day, on­ly the Carib Stand was oc­cu­pied and it was in­hab­it­ed by most­ly rel­a­tives and friends of the T&T play­ers, and the true die-hard crick­et buffs and reg­u­lars of this stand. It was kind of bizarre, sit­ting there watch­ing our re­gion­al team play Sri Lan­ka, and the pop­u­lar Trini­posse Stand, Con­crete Stand and oth­er ar­eas in the Oval com­plete­ly emp­ty. The event has been bereft of any tan­gi­ble mar­ket­ing or pro­mo­tion. Hope­ful­ly it would not be the same way in the Oval when a pro­fes­sion­al T20 crick­et tour­na­ment is held in Trinidad next month. The tour­ney will be con­test­ed be­tween In­dia A, West In­dies A, two T&T teams and a cou­ple spon­sored teams. Word in the grapevine is that Trini­posse will spon­sor one of the teams, with a slew of pro­fes­sion­al crick­eters.

Ro­tar­i­ans can def­i­nite­ly dish it out!

Last week­end I had a fan­tas­tic time when I at­tend­ed Ro­tar­i­ans Can Dish It Out 2, the an­nu­al fund-rais­er of The Ro­tary Club of Mara­cas/St Joseph. The event was a sell out and every­one at­tend­ing had a grand time. As Ro­tar­i­ans treat­ed guests, in­clud­ing St Joseph MP Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney, to a de­lec­table ar­ray of lo­cal cui­sine, club pres­i­dent Azard Mo­hammed told me: "This fund-rais­er is ea­ger­ly await­ed by 800-plus pa­trons. "The event was big­ger and bet­ter than last year. Big­ger since peo­ple who at­tend­ed last year are all on board, and even rec­om­mend­ed it to their friends and fam­i­lies. "Bet­ter in terms of the de­li­cious dish­es three meats, carbs, sal­ads, desserts, drinks. Bet­ter in terms of en­ter­tain­ment, en­dors­ing the tal­ent of our youths and oth­er lo­cal artistes in song, mu­sic and dance."

Held at the food court of House of An­gos­tu­ra in Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille, live en­ter­tain­ment was pro­vid­ed by 17-year-old St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary dancer Krys­ta­lann Jag­ger­nath-Mills; 12-year-old Hillview Col­lege stu­dent Jo­han Richards; gold­en-voiced Di­anne Williams, who nailed cov­ers of Whit­ney Hous­ton hits; and for­mer Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen Kizzie Ruiz. It was a joy to hear Jo­han sing Denyse Plum­mer's Nah Leav­in', as well as see Krys­ta­lann per­form to the remix of KI & Machel Mon­tano's Sin­gle For­ev­er, the same rou­tine she did when ap­pear­ing at the Queen's Park Oval with KI at last Feb­ru­ary's One Chut­ney So­ca Monarch fi­nal. All pro­ceeds from Ro­tar­i­ans Can Dish It Out 2 will go to­wards char­i­ty. From last year's edi­tion, the club was able to as­sist chil­dren with their ed­u­ca­tion­al needs; pro­vide coun­selling sup­port for youths; as­sist fam­i­lies to re­build their lives af­ter dis­as­ters such as flood­ing, fire; pro­vide med­ical at­ten­tion for in­di­vid­u­als; and pre­serve our en­vi­ron­ment.