Picking up the bits and pieces…

Our official Carnival festivities may be over but this country remains in a state of permanent celebration.

The Cricket World Cup Local Organising Committee must have won the acclaimed Band of the Year title, as it has become the biggest “Secret Agent”, having kept totally silent on the issue of the re-opening of the three playing fields: Arnos Vale, Sion Hill and Stubbs.{{more}}

It was this same committee that made a song and dance prior to the world cup warm up cricket matches here in March.

Everyone joined in the chorus with great anticipation of the legacy that would have been left by the millions of dollars in investments in the facilities named.

Yes, the facilities are welcomed, but locking them away from the general public without an explanation is another story.

This column will make this issue its Road March until the matter is publicly ventilated by the authorities charged with the delivery of the fields.

The life of the LOC was expected come to an end at the end of June, however indications are this is not so.

Reports are, the life of this committee has been extended, but to how long no one knows.

While their tenure gets an extension, so too is the wait for the users of these fields who have to play the guessing game.

Whilst we await word from the kind gentlemen, could someone explain the reasoning for putting a mound at the Sion Hill Playing Field?

Common sense will dictate that the mound will rule out areas of practice for the casual sportsmen and women.

Things seemed to have gone ‘ole mas’ with the planners, who do not know or are uncaring of the dynamics of this community based field.

But in our murmuring, two national teams did the country proud of the past two weeks.

During the fete, frolick and fantasy that consumed a lot of people’s focus, the national Under-23 netball and the Under-19 cricket teams, both retained titles at two competitions.

We need to give a jump and wave to the netballers who secured this country’s twelfth title at the OECS Championships. This is no mean feat as it underlines the status of this country’s netball at the sub -regional level.

I will hasten to add there must be greater efforts made to have more younger netballers coming through, as there is a cog in the production machinery of the quality of the pedigree of yesteryear and the most recent past.

Attention too must be paid to the structure of the sport here to ensure continuity of committed players and administrators.

Also in line for a standing ovation are the nation’s Under-19 cricketers, who retained the Windwards crown in St. Lucia last week. They swept the title with some degree of dominance scoring a record 400 plus runs in less than a day, an achievement worthy of commendation in any form of cricket.

And, with this country gaining six picks on the Windwards team, it shows that existence of cricketing talent.

Sadly, amidst the noise and haste of the past two weeks, the West Indies Cricket team moved placidly to clinch the One Day series 2-1 against England. We have grown so accustomed to being whipping boys for the past ten years, that winning is met with unexpectancy. Once more Shivnarine Chanderpaul was the batting wall for the visitors. And under new captain Chris Gayle there seems to be a new lease of life and energy injected in the team.

Evidently there are some pluses in the team but England are not the opponents against which we should judge our marginal improvements.

But let’s hope more than wish that the team can really start turning some corners in the near future.