Cricket more than a game

The greatest cricketer ever to have walked onto a field, Sir Garfield Sobers, painted a fascinating picture of the Barbados in which he grew up.

In My Autobiography, Sir Garry wrote about his childhood in the Bay Land as something of a “12-fingered symphony,” so-called because unlike other youngsters – he had an extra finger on each hand.

After the death of his father, a merchant seamen who was killed during World War II, his mother “did everything she had to do and looked after us wonderfully well,” and that was true despite the fact that “there was no money to send either Gerry, (brother), a year my senior, or me to high school.

We were sent to Bay Street Boys’ (primary) School, but I don’t think it would have made a lot of difference where we had gone because the dominating factor in our lives, even at that early age, was sport (especially cricket) at the forefront of everything we did.”

From early morning to sunset, it was cricket.

“My earliest memories of cricket are as an eightyear-old playing in the road or on the beach,” he recalled.

Much has changed in his life and Barbados’ economic and social fortunes since then. Today Sir Garry is a revered “national hero and Barbados is home to one of the world’s most highlyrated cricket venues, Kensington Oval, which has just completed a $37 million makeover and expansion.

National pride

Sometimes referred to as the “Mecca” of Caribbean cricket, Kensington is the source of national pride and it is there that this weekend and during the month of June some of the most exciting cricket in the 2024 International Cricket Council Men’s T20 World Cup will be played, culminating with the final. It is the only place where the T20 World Cup would have been decided on more than one occasion.

A sports analyst Ali Martin once said: “The island can stake claim to be per capita one of the most productive cricketing and sporting nations in the world.”

Figures compiled by Martin tell much of that story.

• Of the more than 385 men to play for the West Indies since the region first took the field at Lord’s (London) in 1928, an estimated 25 per cent were Bajans.

• Ninety-plus Bajans have played Test cricket.

• At least six have crossed the Atlantic and have represented England.

• In this year’s tournament, four Bajan immigrants are in the England, United States and Canada squads.

• Bajan women have led the region’s sides to cricketing glory.

• The current West Indies Women’s captain is a Bajan and is one of the game’s celebrated superstars.

• Names like Sir Frank Worell, Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Clyde Walcott, Sir Gordon Greenidge, Sir Wes Hall, Sir Charles Griffith, Desmond Haynes, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner and Kraigg Braithwaite dot the pages of global cricket history.

• More has been written about Barbados in books, magazines, and newspapers than in any other single aspect of the country’s life.

But there is more to cricket than just statistics, runs and wickets. Recently, Winston Cox, a former Central Bank governor, described the game as a major transformative force in Barbados. He said, quite correctly that it has lifted many players out of poverty.

He fully expects the T20 World Cup – which may be watched by more than 100 million television viewers – would boost economic performance in 2024 in the Caribbean republic, enabling it to reach the projected 3.8 per cent growth.

‘In the blood’

Pressed to explain Barbados’ success and its high presence in global cricket, Barbadian Roland Butcher, the first black player to represent England in a Test match, said “cricket is in the blood” of Barbadians.

To that we wish to add something else. Cricket inspires passion, which in turn spawns excellence and success. That has been the story of the game in Barbados. That is what you are likely to see and experience during the T20 World Cup.