Interview of Cricket Fans – 53 – West Indies

Thank you so much for your participation in this interview, share your early memories and how you fell in love with this sport.

The first time I watched cricket on TV was when I was 10 months old and whenever it was on, I would always watch it with my grandfather. Other than watching cricket, we used to also watch old game shows too.

Have you been fortunate enough to watch a Cricket match live in a stadium?

Yes, I’ve been fortunate enough to have watch numerous cricket matches at the Queen’s Park Oval. When India toured the Caribbean back in 2011, that was the first time I went to the Oval, also I was spotted on TV with my mother’s longtime friend. The second time I was at the Oval was for the 2nd Test with West Indies and Australia in 2012. 2013 was the third time I was at the Oval that was to see T&T play Jamaica in the Caribbean T20, my brother and I came on camera as well. Later that year, India and Sri Lanka were here for the Tri-Series, I went to the game where Kohli hit a ton and had the pleasure of attending the finals where Dhoni struck 17 off the last over off Eranga to win the Cup for India. I did attend some CPL encounters that year routing on Red Steel at the time. 4 years later, I went with my school to see West Indies play Pakistan and that one was an absolute nail-biter that cheered me up. A few months later India was here again for a white ball series, the second ODI of that series is where I and my mother came on camera. Then I had the privilege of attending a CPL game that season where TKR defeated Patriots in a thrilling league game. Next year I went to the 2018 opener where Knight Riders mashed up St. Lucia Stars and that year was one of the roughest years I went through. India was back here again last year where Kohli hit another ton in the second ODI where the Men In Blue won again and the last time I went to the Oval was when TKR lost to Amazon Warriors quite badly. I have so many memories from the Oval

What’s it like growing up in the Caribbean where Cricket is the major sport played here?

Growing up, cricket was so popular but what made it worse was the Dave Cameron administration and losing all the high profile players to the lucrative and corrupt IPL and other franchise tournaments and to make things worse, there’s T10 now which is killing cricket not here in the Caribbean but worldwide.

Have you ever played Cricket, specially on one of the beaches there?

I played cricket when I was growing up too, it was my grandfather who taught me how to play the game, when I was 5 years old I’d always love to slog every delivery. Between 2013 to 2015, I used to play for Harvard’s Cricket Club, sadly I was forced to stop due to exams and theory but up till this day and before lockdown I’ve been playing cricket in the nets at the Barataria Savannah, which is a recreation ground.

Who is your favourite Cricketer?

My favourite cricketer is the great Brian Lara because he has so many records just like Tendulkar. He has the highest FC and Test score, also broke the record twice for the highest Test score. He is GOAT of test cricket.

It must be special having the likes of Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts and many others as your pace quartet back in the 80s.

Back in the 70s and the 80s, West Indies were very deadly and dangerous, also at that time we were on top of the world and ruling the game and money didn’t matter back then.

2012 World T20 or 2016 World T20?

Both 2012 and 2016 WT20s, we brought out the flavour and them crazy dance moves such as Gangnam Style and Champion but 2016 was the best because of Carlos Braithwaite’s 4 sixes and Marlon Samuels hitting 82 that won the Cup for them. Why I said 2016 was the best for West Indies because both the men and the women won the finals on the same day.

What would your dream XI look like? You can select a player from any era.

West Indies Dream XI –

Desmond Haynes
Gordon Greenidge
Clive Lloyd
Brian Lara
Shivnarine Chanderpaul
Sir Vivian Richards
Derrick Murray
Malcolm Marshall
Curtly Ambrose
Courtney Walsh
Joel Garner
Michael Holding (12th Man)

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s