hugh hen­der­son

In the past few weeks I have at­tend­ed ta­ble ten­nis tour­na­ments, school­boy foot­ball match­es and vol­ley­ball tour­na­ments and could not help no­tice the abun­dance of tal­ent, the nev­er-end­ing work that vol­un­teers de­vote to these ac­tiv­i­ties and how of­ten they have to dig in­to their own pock­ets to make things hap­pen. Trag­i­cal­ly, the cry is al­ways the same-a lack of fund­ing es­pe­cial­ly at the de­vel­op­ment lev­el.

• For ex­am­ple I was told that $2 mil­lion a year is al­lo­cat­ed to vol­ley­ball of which about 80 per cent goes to the var­i­ous na­tion­al teams. An es­ti­mat­ed 200 play­ers com­prise the var­i­ous na­tion­al teams and 2000 oth­ers play vol­ley­ball through­out the coun­try. If we take this as a rough guide, let me com­pare it with, for ex­am­ple, $10 mil­lion paid to a lawyer over a two-year pe­ri­od. As­sum­ing this le­gal ge­nius works for $500 an hour at ten hours per day ($5,000 per day) not even tak­ing a minute for a bath­room break or lunch, this equates to 730 work­ing days in­clud­ing week­ends, as­sum­ing the lawyer does not do one sec­ond of work for an­oth­er client. 730 work­ing days at $5,000 per day equals $3,650,000 which is about one third of $10 mil­lion. If he works the nor­mal 8 hour day ($4,000) ex­clud­ing week­ends and pub­lic hol­i­days, we get 500 work­ing days at $4,000 per day which equals $2 mil­lion. Do the same cal­cu­la­tions if he works for $1,000 per hour or what­ev­er rate you choose, over two years and one year. Draw your own con­clu­sions re­gard­ing how mon­ey is spent and if it is jus­ti­fied.

•I may be pelt­ed with ver­bal stones show­ing how stu­pid I am, how I do not ap­pre­ci­ate the facts, how lawyers em­ploy count­less staff, and that his/her bril­liance is be­yond fi­nan­cial mea­sure, but on the sur­face and in the name of sport de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes, I call this ob­scene and im­moral-just a thought for pos­si­ble dis­cus­sion es­pe­cial­ly about young lawyers aim­ing to work for a Gov­ern­ment min­istry and get­ting rich very quick­ly.

• Pol­i­tics in T&T will nev­er change-roads in rur­al ar­eas can't be paved in thir­ty years but cer­tain per­sons can be paid mil­lions with­out any­one bat­ting an eye­lid. Na­tion­al teams can go around the world for all sorts of rea­sons at enor­mous cost while oth­ers scrunt at home year af­ter year. Wannabe politi­cians ru­in tele­vised in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et with nev­er end­ing elec­tion ad­ver­tis­ing

Kohli a de­light on the eye

23-year-old In­dia bats­man and vice-cap­tain, Vi­rat Kohli, con­tin­ues to make my day. In the past three weeks I have watched him score 133*, 108, 66 and 183 with strokes of pow­er and beau­ty along with a self-con­fi­dence that leaps through the TV at view­ers. Kohli has lit up the Asia Cup and al­ready has scored over 3,500 runs in his ODI ca­reer in­clud­ing eleven hun­dreds, is the new poster boy of In­di­an crick­et and pos­si­bly world crick­et. Two years ago I se­lect­ed Kohli and Dar­ren Bra­vo as the two play­ers of the fu­ture and while Dar­ren is cer­tain­ly a class bats­man, his present record pales in com­par­i­son with Kohli's. Kohli com­bines ag­gres­sion, ar­ro­gance, com­pet­i­tive­ness and even a hint of anger if some­thing goes wrong, where­as Dar­ren ap­pears too laid back a char­ac­ter and may need to be a bit more "in your face" like Dwayne, his broth­er. You need body lan­guage that tells your op­po­nents you are boss!

Sor­ry Bangladesh

The Asian Cup fi­nal was a thrilling game with Pak­istan beat­ing the host Bangladesh by two runs. Tamim Iqbal scored four half-cen­turies in his four games and was named Man of the Se­ries. In­cred­i­bly, he was not se­lect­ed in the orig­i­nal squad for the tour­na­ment, proof that not on­ly WI se­lec­tors lack thought. Bangladesh has nev­er reached so far in an ODI tour­na­ment and you could see every lo­cal sup­port­er deep in prayer as the end ap­proached. I was so hop­ing they would win.

Barath's ob­vi­ous tal­ent

Con­grats to Adri­an Barath on his come­back cen­tu­ry against Guyana and his re­call to WI ODI squad. His tal­ent is ob­vi­ous (eg his 41 in ODI No4) and more runs will come as he ma­tures. Last week I wrote that this Aus­tralian team was "beat­able" since in my view on­ly Mike Hussey, Brett Lee and Shane Wat­son are world class play­ers. The fact WI won ODI No2, tied No3 and won No4 makes my judg­ment slight­ly bet­ter than all those who pre­dict­ed an Aussie white­wash. Kieron Pol­lard com­plet­ed his mag­nif­i­cent cen­tu­ry in No4 and gave his team a won­der­ful vic­to­ry. What in­cred­i­ble pow­er Pol­lard pos­sess­es. Lo­cal­ly, I note Nicholas Sookdeosingh (NS) scor­ing runs for Pow­er­Gen. A few years ago Dave Mo­hammed asked me to find a spon­sor for NS and I tried, and hav­ing seen him bat four times in the past two sea­sons and be­ing suit­ably im­pressed, he may be close to na­tion­al se­lec­tion in T20 for­mat.

In­ter­est­ing ten­nis world

The in­ter­na­tion­al ten­nis world keeps get­ting more in­ter­est­ing, with Fed­er­er win­ning In­di­an Wells for the fourth time beat­ing Nadal eas­i­ly in their semi­fi­nal and hav­ing to beat 6'10" John Is­ner in the fi­nal, who in turn de­feat­ed the "in­vin­ci­ble" No­vak Djokovic in his se­mi. Last week my daugh­ter in Cana­da in­vit­ed me to see the "big shots" in the Cana­di­an Open in Au­gust. It took me a split sec­ond to ac­cept as we had such a good time last sum­mer watch­ing Nadal in ac­tion at the same tour­na­ment.

Swim­mers on the im­prove

It is grat­i­fy­ing to note the on­go­ing im­prove­ment of our young swim­mers on the in­ter­na­tion­al scene such as Dy­lan Carter, Chris­t­ian Homer Saman­tha Ra­hael, Emiro Goosen and Joshua Ro­many to name those who did so well re­cent­ly in Flori­da. Swim­ming against Amer­i­can Ryan Lotche, an Olympian is an out­stand­ing achieve­ment. When we lived in Cana­da my four kids were heav­i­ly in­volved in com­pet­i­tive swim­ming and did very well with­out quite win­ning Olympic Gold, but swim­ming is a mar­velous sport for both fit­ness and dis­ci­pline and the more pools we can get the bet­ter.

Take a bow Sportt

The na­tion­al Cadet (Un­der 15) ta­ble ten­nis team of Aaron Wil­son (13 years), Arun Roop­nar­ine (14) and the Mun­gal broth­ers, Sarvesh (14) and Am­resh (13) leave for Cu­ba this week to play in the pres­ti­gious Caribbean Re­gion­al Ta­ble Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion Cadet and Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship. Be­lieve it or not, the cost of a pas­sage to Cu­ba is over $6,000, and I am ad­vised that SPORTT Com­pa­ny has kind­ly agreed to pay for pas­sages. Neal and Massy Foun­da­tion con­tributed $10,000 to as­sist with oth­er ex­pens­es while the in­di­vid­ual play­ers must raise the rest from fam­i­ly and friends-a nev­er-end­ing oc­cu­pa­tion. It is so re­fresh­ing to have four young won­der­ful­ly tal­ent­ed teens rep­re­sent­ing our coun­try and their coach is well known and high­ly re­spect­ed po­lio vic­tim Den­nis La Rose about whom I wrote re­cent­ly. Good luck guys.

Since I be­gan by tak­ing a turn in lawyers' fees, let me end with a few at­tor­ney jokes (fac­tu­al).

• AT­TOR­NEY: "The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?" WIT­NESS: "He's 20, much like your IQ."

• A: "How was your first mar­riage ter­mi­nat­ed?"

W: "By death."

A: "And by whose death was it ter­mi­nat­ed?"

W: "Take a guess."

• A: "Doc­tor, how many of your au­top­sies have you per­formed on dead peo­ple?"

W: "All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight."

• A: "She had three chil­dren, right?" W: "Yes."

A: "How many were boys?" W: "None"

A: "Were there any girls?" W: "Your Ho­n­our, can I get a new at­tor­ney?"

• A: "All your an­swers MUST be oral, okay? What school did you go to?"

W: "Oral."

• A: "Now Doc­tor, is it not true that when a per­son dies in his sleep he doesn't know about it un­til the next morn­ing?"

•W: "Did you ac­tu­al­ly pass the bar ex­am?"

There are more jokes to tell but I had bet­ter stop in case I need a lawyer this week. God bless you and yours.