Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD
`Hey, Angella. Your homies are being slaughtered,” chirped the Mail & Guardian’s sports editor as the West Indies cricket team crashed spectacularly in the fifth Test. I detected a generous delivery of schadenfreude in his comment.
He was not the only South African in recent weeks to have joyfully commiserated with me about how badly “my” team has been playing in this series (funnily, they have all been white).
I’ve never been a cricket fan. To me this gentlemen’s game invented by the British is rather like watching paint dry – actually the hardening of a good emulsion may just have an edge.
But, as everyone seemed to think that given my Jamaican heritage, it is a sin for me not to enjoy cricket, I made the trip to Centurion Park last weekend in the hope of being won over.
There amidst a sea of white faces and a handful of black spectators, including a contingent of fans who had made the journey from the Caribbean, I tried not to dwell on the fact that my Saturday would have been better enjoyed shopping in Rosebank.
“Let’s hope Brian Lara gives them hell today,” said a beer-and-sandwich toting Indian fellow on his way back to the stands.
It was to be wishful thinking on his and my part. We watched in disgust as the whole lot collapsed like a stack of dominoes, to the delight of the partisan crowd basking in the Pretoria sunshine.
“And they say all men are created equal,” piped the curly-haired woman next to me, with her cellulite-puckered legs propped up on the seat in front, as yet another wicket went flying.
Her comment was clearly meant for my hearing – there are some whites out there who still think racial superiority can be judged on the playing field. Which explains why many local blacks have been disappointed that the Windies failed to put up a better show.
As a black colleague put it: “This is so depressing. Why did they bother to come and allow those white boys to humiliate them this way?”
It is a question I’ve been asking myself since the start of this ill- fated tour. This was meant to be an historical encounter, which promised to display the kind of skills that have made the Windies world-beaters for much of this last half-century.
Instead they got an arse-kicking. The fault clearly lies with the players who were too focused on filling their pockets with cash and playing power games with their cricket board to concentrate on the game.
Victor Hunte, a retired Barbadian telephone engineer sitting next to me in the stands, tried to shed some light on what’s gone wrong: “It’s a thinking man’s game, but these guys don’t use their brains. They are making some very elementary mistakes.”
As he pointed out, the Windies (it’s all hot air if you ask me) used to beat anyone on the planet. They were the pride of the Caribbean. “It was what we were known for – our source of greatness. Now we are the whipping boys of the world.”
Hunte, who spends a small fortune annually following the team around the world, started watching cricket in 1958 when his cousin, Conrad Hunte (whom I later met), was the opening batsman.
He fondly recalls the glory days of Gary Sobers and the three Ws (whoever they were) who went to England in 1963 and trounced them 5-0 (they did it twice). The media wailed that it was a blackwash. Now the talk is of a whitewash.
The team that came to South Africa are young and clearly not in the same class as their predecessors. So what’s all the fuss about? It is like putting me in the ring with Mike Tyson and cheering loudly when he knocks me out within a nanosecond.
For no sooner had a batsman assumed his position at the wicket than he was making the long walk back to the dressing room.
For a while after Lara started batting, it looked as if some pride could be salvaged as he reduced Allan Donald to a frustrated foul-mouthed fast bowler, with an effortless display of his natural talents.
Then came lunch and my introduction to the air-conditioned VIP world of the Long Room, where I rubbed shoulders with the likes of Geoffrey Boycott, Clive Lloyd, Ali Bacher and a bunch of corporate fat cats sitting down to a three-course meal.
Boycott, a former England player, did not hide his disdain of the one-sided play. “Me Mum could ‘ave bowled out them two opening West Indian batsmen,” he declared in a broad Yorkshire drawl, while tucking into salmon millefeuille.
He accused the Windies of laziness and lack of commitment to learning the game. “This is the worst team for 35 years. You can’t just rely on natural talent. It takes practice to keep your game up to speed.”
I was absorbing his words of wisdom when the sight of a lissom blonde playing the piano distracted him. “Now, I wouldn’t mind pulling that. What do you think my chances are?”
(Now, now, Geoffrey. Have you not had enough trouble with blondes recently?)
In a corner by the bar I spotted Clive Lloyd, the Windies’ manager, with a hangdog look on his face staring out of the glass screen on to the pitch. Lara had just been caught out, so I asked if it was hard to watch.
“Yeah, when they’re playing like that it is,” he replied. “What we need are warriors who will slug it out when the going gets tough.”
I wanted to add that teamwork and a sense of purpose were also lacking – money should never be the motivating factor – but no point in kicking a man when he’s already down.
Conrad Hunte offered several other reasons for the test debacle. “We just don’t have the same pool of talented players to choose from now that cricket is being usurped by more lucrative sports [like soccer and basketball] among young West Indian kids,” he said.
In addition, Hunte, who has spent the past seven years with the national development programme bringing cricket into townships, said the team did not have enough time to adjust to local conditions because of their threatened boycott at the start of the tour.
Silas Wilson, Cassius Mark and Nicholas Alad, from St Vincent, had won a national lottery to attend the fifth Test. But they had little to cheer about. “It’s not the losing that hurts,” said Wilson. “It’s that we were beaten so badly.” He looked like a man in pain.
I knew how he felt. Back in the Long Room I was being suffocated by a potent blend of South African national pride and false sympathy.
“Are you from the West Indies?” asked the overly dressed redhead sitting across the coffee table. By now I recognised that air of smug superiority.
No I’m South African, I heard myself retort and felt a little like Peter must have when he denied Christ after the crucifixion. Well, I could hardly say I was from England -they’re probably the only team worse than the West Indies.