More things change, dey remain de same

Happy New Year to evry-all. From all in-day-care-shun, de season was ah good one, except of course foh de out-standing victim-eyes brothers and sisters whom we must never forget until justice is served. Talking ‘bout de discarded LIAT workers led by Jerry Howard;  de public servants who were fired foh not taking de vax-scene, Bigger Bigs, ok! ok! Nuff said. Luckily de Nine Mornings was good and helped us to brush-aside West Indies’ 3-nil de-feet against Bangladesh, in de T 20 matches played in front record breaking home crowds at Arnos Vale. Seems like West Indies Cricket heading down-hill again. So something tell me go back to January 2015, ten years ago, and read what De Love Vine had to say bout Cricket.

De game all started way back between de Philistines, captained by one Goliath, ah giant warrior, de hardest hitting opening batsman, standing over nine feet tall. De opposing side was de Israelites, captained by King Saul. Dey was dis Jewish shepherd-boy David, de fastest bowler, mining sheep on his Dad’s estate. One morning Goliath asked to change de Rules: “captain out all man out.” Men uses to bowl wid spear and bow’n’arrow, strange protect-shun as Goliath’s gear was brass metal from head to toe: crash helmet, shield, gloves, pads foh de feet and rib cage. Pan-demon-yum uses to break loose when Goliath went out to bat! In dat fear-most Test Match, he was at de wicket foh days calling pon Saul to come out and bowl, but Saul was no match foh Goliath. Was de youngster David who begged Saul to put him to bowl. In dem days too, bowlers walked wid dey own balls (arrow, spear or what-have-yuh). Saul agreed and Shepherd boy David walked onto de field wid Five Stones. Rule No 2 was five, not six balls ah over. Naturally Goliath felt insulted by dis lickle youth-man in front him. Suddenly he became intimidated when David pulled out ah sling-shot, took out stone No 1 and showed it to de umpire, who inspected de stone foh any ball tampering. In his entire career, Goliath had never had stones bowled or pelted at him. David of course, had tampered wid de stone by carving out de letters (GOD) as in Goliath-Owe-Death. Den he turned to Goliath and said “Goliey-boy dis one is foh yuh from GOD!” One stone in his tail! oops, his head and Goliath was down and out. Match over. Up to dis moment de War in de East continues. So does de Article:

“Over de years Cricket has been refined and is today referred to as de Gentleman’s Game, except it has become corrupted wid new in-cent-thief, like big money, technology (hawk-I and others) Union-I-say-shun, and of course ugly politics. Poli-to-shun want to dictate who should be picked on de team.

But ley we look at our current WI Test Team, ranked No 8 in de world. We have ah lot ah problems in our cricket dat has nothing to do wid de actual game. Our main problem has to do wid de Administrators and Officials, some of whom have never held ah bat, except ah coconut bat like Sir Vin Sin, dis country’s chief security add-vice-sir to de PM. And we dey crying out foh de escalating crime situation in SVG.

Needless to repeat dat South Africa, No 1 in de world gave us ah licking to think about. We were out-played in every department, our bowling was mediocre, our batsmen all show potential, but lacked de determine-nay-shun to bat and stay at de wicket, and go beyond de 40’s and 50’s. Shun-dah-Paul, our main man who uses to mek de 100’s gone thru, he should bow out gracefully and spare us another pull-it-tek-ill outcry.

Ah have one come-plain about dis beating dat we got from South Africa; and dat is, Dennis Ramed-in should ah bin at home like Sammy,

Pollard and Bravo watching de game…. Dey’s no victim-I-say-shun in dis matter, and ah support de Board foh imposing de much needed disciplinary measures on de senior players and captains, dem fellars cut short de tour of India. No love foh de game. It’a all about money.

De current players are young and wid good coaching, discipline, full commitment to de game and ah revised structure foh managing WI cricket, we could start ah climb back to de top. It is my feelings dat dey will do much better in de shorter version of de games coming up next week.

We cannot match countries like England, Austrailia and South Africa when it comes to de development of cricket. These countries spend large sums of money in de development of de Youths. Right here at home, former national player, Gunny Hinds has ah one-dah-full coaching program, ah Nursery foh youngsters at de primary school level. Ask Gunny what sort ah budget de Ministry has foh de program. De poor kids don’t even get snacks. Clearly we have ah long way up from No 8 to No 1 again.”

Written ten years ago.. De more things change eh…. And wid dat, is gone ah gone again

One Love Bassy

• Bassy Alexander is a land surveyor, folklorist and social commentator.