Photo by LeVaughn Flynn
A trophy belonging to the great Jamaican batsman George Headley on display at the National Library as part of the cricket exhibition put on by the history and archaeology department at the University of the West Indies.

LeVaughn Flynn, Staff Reporter

With one quick visit to the National Library in Kingston, you can learn what Dr. Julian Cresser took six years to research.

The cricket exhibition on display at the entrance of the library chro-nicles the beginning of the game in Jamaica in 1870 to the present day and is a great history lesson as the Caribbean, and Jamaica in particular, prepares to host the ICC Cricket World Cup in March and April.

The exhibition is the second one produced by the Social History Project (SHP) in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of the West Indies (UWI).

SHP director Dr. Kathleen Monteith said the aim is to make researched projects more accessible to the public.

History

"The whole idea is to bring Jamaica's history to the wider public," said Dr. Monteith.

"We want to provide it in a popular form that everyone can have access to, as academic work is hardly read."

Dr. Cresser, whose doctoral thesis was based on Jamaica's cricket history (1880-1918) and how it reflected what was taking place in the wider society, said the exhibition could have taken place at any time, but that it was appropriate now with the World Cup only three months away.

The National Library exhibition ends on December 20. After that, the exhibition moves to the UWI Library in January and February and to Devon House in March and April.

The exhibition gives a good account of how far the game has come in Jamaica, from being played only by white elites in the late 1800s to today where there is women's and blind cricket.

The exhibition cites St. Jago and Vere CC as the first local clubs in 1857 and that Jamaica's first national team was formed in 1888.

In the early 1900s, blacks became more visible in the cricket clubs, particularly Lucas (working class) and Melbourne (middle class).

The exhibition also refers to the famous 1968 Sabina Park riot during a Test match between England and the West Indies. Working-class patrons threw bottles on the pitch following an unpopular call by the umpire against the West Indies. The police reacted by firing tear gas at them, but in an embarrassing twist the wind blew the gas towards Kingston Cricket Club which housed several dignitaries including the Governor-General.

The exhibition concludes by showing the great strides cricket has made with the formalisation of women's cricket in 1966 through the establishing of the Jamaica Women's Cricket Association and the introduction of Blind Cricket in 2005.

Among the artefacts on display are a B.A.H.F. trophy belonging to George Headley, a cricket ball owned by Michael Holding, a bat made of coconut bough and several books on great Jamaican West Indies cricketers.