"Come on Mikey get the strawberries, we are taking it to cricket," yelled Martin Adrien to his cricket pal Michael Bacchus as they made their way to Taunton to support the West Indies against Bangladesh in their 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup clash Monday.
The two friends began their journey from Tooting Bec in London, where they started off a 176-mile drive to get to the ground. Adrien said this was nothing strange, as they have been driving all over England supporting the West Indies team for decades. Win, lose or draw, they are normally among the familiar faces in the West Indies crowd. In fact, they are so well known, West Indies women's coach Henderson Springer made it his duty to go across and thank Bacchus for keeping faith in West Indies cricket when he showed up at the One-day International versus England last week.
Bacchus got up at 3.50 am and prepared sandwiches and drinks and headed to Blackhorse Lane train station to get to Tooting Bec. When he arrived, Adrien was already there waiting anxiously for the journey.
Guardian Media journalist Vinode Mamchan joined in the journey to get a first-hand look at what the duo undergo just to be there for the team. On the drive down, the two spoke of the future of the West Indies team at this tournament and never had anything negative to say about the players. They were, however, worried that skipper Jason Holder's side would not make it into the semi-finals but were hoping and praying that the 'biffers' (big hitters), as they called them, could really make a difference and turn around the fortunes of the team. As it played out in the first innings, some of the big hitters clicked for the Windies and they gave Bangladesh a 300 total to chase.
Heading to Taunton, the regional side had just three points from four matches and the men had already driven 128 miles twice to support the Windies in Nottingham. But for the Nottingham journey some other West Indies fans like the vociferous David Blatcher joined them and Adrien decided to rent a school bus for the trip.
After this, the group met up at Thurton Heath and using personal cars headed down to Southampton in a 91-mile trip for the first game there between the Windies and South Africa, which was washed out after just 7.3 overs. They made the Southampton run twice as the West Indies also met England at the same venue last Friday and unfortunately lost the match.
Whilst on the journey to Taunton on Monday they passed world heritage site Stonehenge. After trying to get as close as possible to it, however, they gave up and continued their journey to the ground. This is because the Stonehenge road was closed off as authorities are preparing for the Stonehenge Solstice festival carded for Friday. Stonehenge, a unique stone circle situated in modern-day Wiltshire, is one of the most famous landmarks in Britain and continues to confound historians and visitors alike. Despite extensive research and theorising, today researchers are no closer to understanding how the stones were put there and why.
After this, it was on the way again to Taunton until they were presented with the beauty of strawberries growing on massive land spaces. Interested customers are allowed to go into these fields and pick to their heart's leisure, paying 50 pence (TT$4.25) a bowl when they emerge with their fruits.
However, farmers are now saying the price of British strawberries could soar as much as 50 per cent, as the industry is facing the “disastrous and cataclysmic” effects of losing European Union workers due to the impending Brexit implosion. Around 95 per cent of the 29,000 seasonal labourers who pick fruit in the UK are from the EU.
As the duo stopped to buy from a local vendor on the M3, he tried his best to 'keep' their change of five pounds and this did not delight them. Armed with the strawberries minutes later, they drove for another hour to reach Taunton and as they reached close to the ground they voiced their displeasure at how the Somerset County Cricket Club had treated their heroes Sir Vivian Richards and Joel Garner, they having served the club with distinction during their glory days.
Closer to the ground, elderly folks were seen driving their ancient cars along the road and this took Bacchus back to the days of the donkey cart in Guyana. Then they heard the beat of drums from Bangladeshi fans and this stole their attention and eventually led them to a hunt for their noisemaker - David Blatcher - before filing into the ground for the game.