Tony Deyal,
Contributor
WATCHING THE West Indies play in Australia, I thought of the great Learie Constantine. His favourite phrase, as a commentator, was, "In my day" In his day, he was indeed a great player who was recognised as much for his enthusiasm for the game as for his achievements as an all-rounder. He was the first West Indian cricketer to receive widespread recognition from cricket fans throughout the world, especially those in England where he played professional cricket.
It was said that when Learie Constantine was bowling, he had a trick that greatly endeared him to the English crowds who first saw him in 1928. Sometimes when the ball had been played to a fieldsman and Contantine was walking back to his mark, the fieldsman would throw the ball at Constantine's back. Just as it seemed certain to hit him in the small of the back, he would whip his hand behind him and catch it, without having given the slightest hint that he had seen it coming.
Some of our players in Australia were unable to catch the ball when it was in front of them and right under their noses. Watching our total washout and whitewash, I wished for another Constantine or players like him, who enjoy the game and make it enjoyable for the spectators. Before Valentine's Day this year, I was trying to explain to my wife that in my day the only Valentine I knew was a Jamaican left-arm spin bowler who, together with Sonny Ramadhin, helped the West Indies to earn our first victory on English soil in June, 1950.
In my day, if we cared for a girl we would inevitably do something stupid to attract her attention, some kind of mischief, up to and including pulling her hair and running away. Cards, chocolates and such like were for Christmas, together with apples, grapes and Santa Claus. February was carnival and calypso, not sentimental ballads.
Valentine's Day was June 29th, 1950, when, at the end of the game, Lord Kitchener and his cronies sang, "Cricket, lovely cricket, at Lord's where I saw it." The calypso extolled the virtues of those "lovely twins of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine." No roses are red and violets are blue. More like, "He played his cricket on the heath/ The pitch was full of bumps/ A fastball hit him in the teeth/ The dentist drew the stumps."
This Valentine's Day, 2001, my heart went out to Jimmy Adams and West Indies cricket. My wife did not agree that I should write about it, but she is of another generation, one in which cricket is not as important as hearts and flowers. Harold Pinter, the playwright, would have agreed with my Valentine's Day dedication. He has said, "I tend to believe that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth." He went on to say, "Certainly greater than sex, although sex isn't too bad either."
Perhaps this is why my wife did not want me to write about cricket. However, I am not as avid a cricket fan as Pinter or Dennis Norden, the comedian who, talking about the month of October, said, "It's a funny kind of month, October. For the really keen cricket fan it's when you discover your wife left you in May."
At a Yorkshire cricket match, a young boy rushed up to a spectator shouting, "Dad! Dad! I've got terrible news for you. Jimmy's got tetanus. Grandma's dead, and mother's run off with the postman."
The man looked down at his son, "Ay, lad, and I've got even worse news for thee. Hutton's out!"
At another English cricket ground, just as the bowler was about to run up to bowl, the batsman put out his arm to stop him, stood bolt upright and took off his cap. The puzzled bowler and fielders looked around and saw a hearse slowly going past the ground. They all joined in the tribute and after a minute everyone resumed the game. At the end of the over the bowler told the batsman, "I must say I thought that was a very touching and respectful gesture. Very touching indeed."
"Well it was the least I could do," replied the batsman. "After all, we were married for twenty-five years."
In Australia, cricket and sex can lead to more than Brian Lara's loss of form. Alan McGilvray, the Australian cricket commentator, once commented on the fate of test batsman, Kim Hughes. "It's been a weekend of delight and disappointment for Hughes," McGilvray said. "His wife presented him with twins yesterday and a duck today."
In the West Indies, in my day, it was like C.L.R. James put it in Beyond a Boundary. "Cricket is first and foremost a dramatic spectacle. It belongs with the theatre, ballet, opera and the dance." This was the cricket of Constantine, Ramadhin and Valentine, Weekes, Worrell, Walcott, Kanhai, Sobers and Richards. It is not the cricket of today.
Perhaps it is as Neville Cardus says, "In cricket, as in no other game, a great master may well go back to the pavilion scoreless. In no other game does the law of averages get to work so potently, so mysteriously." Perhaps the law of averages has hit us and for all the times we were above average, we now have to suffer the agony of being below average.
It is said that tough times never last but tough people do. What we need is the toughness of a Brian Close, the Englishman who took a terrific pounding from our best fast bowlers. In one game the batsman produced a full-blooded pull shot and Close, fielding at short leg, was hit in the face. Amazingly, the ball flew straight up in the air and the batsman was caught at slip.
"My God!" said a worried fielder going to check on Close. "What would have happened if he'd hit you right between the eyes?" "In that case," growled Close, "the bugger would have been caught at cover."
Tony Deyal was last seen saying that Jimmy Adams was taken to Kingston Hospital suffering from a bad side.
