Vin­ode Mam­chan

For­mer West In­dies play­er Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine start­ed ad­ver­tis­ing the match on a Caribbean Air­lines flight on Thurs­day evening. Such was the jol­ly mood in the air­bus that every­one whom he ap­proached was will­ing to give up their sleep and lis­ten to the man who made a name for him­self as pres­i­dent of the West In­dies Play­ers As­so­ca­tion (WIPA). Al­so on that flight were his fel­low crick­eters in Ian Bish­op, David Williams, Kelvin Williams, Daren Gan­ga, Sher­win Gan­ga, Mark Ramkissoon, Ra­jin­dra Dhan­raj, as well as for­mer West In­dies and Bar­ba­dos crick­eter Sher­win Camp­bell. Al­so on the flight was the man­ag­er of the Trinidad and To­ba­go team Omar Khan.

Sleep on the flight was over­tak­en by crick­et talk, as Ram­nar­ine tried to ex­plain to many the rudi­ments of the game. The plane was main­ly packed with crick­et sup­port­ers and when they ar­rived at the Ft Laud­erdale In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port the talk con­tin­ued as there was a near one and a half hour wait to get past im­mi­gra­tion as on­ly two of­fi­cers were work­ing.

Once on the ground they would then re­alise that a num­ber of Tri­nis were al­ready there wait­ing for the crick­et ac­tion on the week­end. All of a sud­den, tents were erect­ed in front of pubs as anx­ious own­ers an­tic­i­pat­ed good sales of choice bev­er­ages. Talk on the street was about crick­et and not base­ball for a change. The fans here fresh from cel­e­brat­ing the NBA tri­umph of the Mi­a­mi Heat were now turn­ing their at­ten­tion to the big red crick­et sta­di­um and look­ing for a good Tri­ni par­ty. The pop­u­lar Joys roti shop at Uni­ver­si­ty Dri­ve was "pump­ing" with ac­tiv­i­ties as Tri­nis rushed to get a good roti and some Carib Beers. Even at the ground yes­ter­day, peo­ple were show­ing up to meet Ke­iron Pol­lard, the man they would have seen dec­i­mat bowlers the world over in T20 crick­et.

Of course, there were those who did not hear of the sport be­fore and en­quired what all the fuss was about. How­ev­er, very ea­ger West In­di­an fans were quick to seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­tro­duce an­oth­er fan to the game.The Broward Sta­di­um a US$70M venue looked pris­tine and up to world stan­dard. A quick tour of the fa­cil­i­ty and one could have no­ticed that every­thing was in place for the grand oc­ca­sion. To­day, the sport of crick­et will get a much need­ed in­jec­tion, with its pres­ence in North Amer­i­ca. Mean­while, Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine was last seen try­ing to con­vince some bas­ket­ballers along North State Road to try their hands at crick­et.