The day cricket, football won
Sunday, January 21 2007
What a tremendous sporting day it was! Trinidad and Tobago hosted two major international (sceptics will say ?regional?) sporting events last Wednesday, and went on to win them both handsomely.
First, let us settle the geography: We played the sovereign nation Guyana, in cricket at the Queen?s Park Oval during the day, and then met another sovereign nation, Haiti, at football in the Hasely Crawford Stadium in the evening.
While both these countries are in our geographic ?region?, they are full members of the world community. We all know that a football match between, say, England and Scotland is a full international, but our old colonial mindset prevents us from accepting that football between us and Haiti is an international match. We consider it to be something less ? a regional event.
A few years ago we would have argued that we could not promote two sporting events on the same day. The fans were ?shared? fans, and it would be unfair to force a choice of which event to support upon them.
While there is some truth to this ?shared fan? opinion, as there is a core of ?sports supporters? out there, the cricket and football spectator markets are reasonably diverse.
In any case, with the cricket ending around 5 pm, and the TT vs Haiti match kicking off at 7.15, less than a mile (but a long way in ?time? given our traffic problems) away, dedicated fans could take in both events.
How many of you supported both the cricket and the football? I really would like to know. You deserve the Title: Sports Supporter of TT.
And the support for both events was good, judging from crowd turnout. The cricket authorities opened the gates at the Oval, waiving admission charges, in order to encourage as many people as possible to come to the match.
The reason being that they wanted to test the security and crowd-control systems leading up to the Cricket World Cup in March.
A fair crowd seemed to have taken advantage of the opportunity, judging from what I saw on the news, and no doubt, the Local Organising Committee will have told us how the systems worked by the time you read this. The neighbourhood will also have made their comments on the restrictions put in place for traffic and security.
However, it was the thrill of the game, TT against Guyana, and the triumph of our cricketers, that was really impressive. I could not be there being on the Organising Committee for the football.
But I did see the highlights, and was especially pleased with the return of Ravi Rampaul, and the success of young Kieron Pollard. I look forward to seeing him live in the middle one day soon.
For the Guyanese, it has been a special week here for them as well. Their national cricket and football teams are both here in Trinidad, the footballers playing in the Digicel Caribbean Cup Finals.
The cricket team has been coming to support Guyana at the Manny Ramjohn Stadium, and for a small group, they do manage to create considerable fan support for their footballers, something small groups of Trinis are unwilling to do for our teams.
But, back at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, TT?s young football team has been rising with each match they play. Starting the Finals with a 1-1 draw with scrappy Barbados the previous week, they then defeated a strong Martinique squad on Monday 5-1, before closing out the Preliminary Round with a 3-1 result against Haiti. This performance belied the harping critics who felt that our Warriors lacked the experience and cohesiveness to do well in this tournament.
Do we remember how we struggled in the 2005 version of the Digicel Caribbean Cup in Barbados? I am certainly pleased with the performance of this new squad, for even when goals were missed, or passes went astray.
The tactics were clear, and the commitment was total. We are now in the semi-finals, and have therefore qualified for the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the United States in June.
For those of you who are already claiming that this young team is ?wasting their time?, because the overseas-based players will be available for the Gold Cup, I have this to say: No overseas-based player is currently on the squad. And the attitude of every team member on the current Digicel Caribbean Cup squad is: ?I expect some overseas based to have a place on the team, but not my place!?
And that is the attitude that really builds powerful teams. Every overseas-based player knows that they have to earn their place on the Gold Cup squad, and that is good for the future of our football.
As you read this, the semi-finals of the Digicel Caribbean Cup were already played last night at the Hasely Crawford Stadium. Trinidad and Tobago played Cuba in the feature match-up while French speaking nations Haiti and Guadeloupe clashed in the other semi-final.
That south Trinidad-based group has been tighter and more competitive than the Sedley Joseph Group played in the north.
This Digicel Caribbean Cup has been a tremendous success so far. Do not miss the championships match on Tuesday evening.