Test cricket in Guyana, a country with a passion for politics, has had its volcanic moments
John Young
Guyana is the only one of the countries that the South African cricket team will be visiting in the next two months that is not a volcanic island. Politically, however, Guyana has experienced eruptions on a volcanic scale and cricket and politics combine as in few other places on earth.
A man who learnt his cricket at Bishops in Cape Town was at the centre of Guyana’s volatile politics in the lead up to independence in 1966. Sir Richard Luyt arrived at Georgetown via Oxford (where he captained the cricket team) and service for the British Colonial Office in Africa. Between 1953 and 1964 when Luyt arrived, Guyana had three Constitutions and four elections punctuated by violent riots and strikes.
In the 1964 elections (96% poll) the party of the majority Asian community (the People’s Progressive Party) won the most seats but the British government asked Forbes Burnham, leader of the mostly black party, the People’s National Congress, to form a government. As governor and commander-in-chief, Luyt had to quell the violence that followed. He stayed on as governor general of the independent Guyana for six months before becoming the vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town. At UCT there were more protests: first against his appointment, then by his students against the apartheid government.
Guyana is a country of contrasts and contradictions. One of the world’s most racially diverse populations is packed into a coastal strip (65km at its widest) on the northern edge of South America.
Guyana has the biggest land mass of the countries that make up the West Indies but the smallest population. The title of Shiva Naipul’s 1983 novel A Hot Country should prepare our cricketers for the weather conditions. He describes Guyana as “a million people trapped in a sun-stunned vacuum separating ocean from jungle”. The southern border with Brazil is only one degree north of the equator.
South Africans will recognise the key points in Guyanese colonial history as similar to their own. The Dutch West Indies Company came to visit in 1616. Then the British took over until in 1667 they organised a swap: the Dutch could have Georgetown if the British could get New York. Some more grabbing and swapping followed until the Brits finally settled down in 1815. With the abolition of slavery in the 1830s, thousands of Indians were imported for labour. They now form the largest ethnic group in Guyana and the People’s Progressive Party forms the government. The Dutch influence can still be seen in the dykes that protect the land from the sea.
Strictly speaking, Guyana is not in the West Indies at all, but it was the Georgetown Cricket Club that first had the idea of the West Indies cricket team. They organised the first intercolonial match between Guyana and Barbados in 1865 and organised the first joint tour to England in 1900.
Test cricket in Guyana has also had some volcanic moments. The Third Test against England in 1954 was disrupted by a barrage of bottle-throwing when the local wicketkeeper Clifford McWatt was given run out when it looked like the West Indies might avoid the follow-on. British cricket writer Alan Ross wrote in 1960 that Guyana “is a real place. One is out of the false world of tourists and into the hard world of affairs, of strident nationalist politics, of economic struggle.”
The socialist experiment of the 1970s has left Guyana with one of the world’s fastest-shrinking economies but the discovery of bauxite (the raw material for making aluminium) and offshore oil provide export revenue.
Cricket is a passion for the Guyanese but it doesn’t beat politics. The political riots of 1962 meant that Georgetown lost its Test match. That happened again in 1981 but this time it was because England had picked a replacement bowler with Rhodesian and South African connections, Robin Jackman. The Forbes Burnham government would not issue a visa to Jackman. It will be interesting to hear what the customs officials have to say to Jackman if his tour party and commentary duties take him to South America.
A pure cricket riot erupted at the Bourda ground in 1979 when a Packer series WSC SuperTest between the West Indies and Australia was scheduled for Georgetown. A week of equatorial rain pushed back the start of the game by two days but the weather forecasts for a prompt start were good. About 15 000 people were in the ground at 8am. A pitch inspection was made at 2pm but no announcement followed. By 2.30pm the crowd was fed up with waiting. By 4.30pm the stands were in tatters and the field was strewn with debris. Riot police were called to protect the players in their dressing rooms. Greg Chappell of Australia and Collis King of West Indies scored centuries in the truncated game that eventually happened.
The rain that upset the cricket crowd feeds the rivers that gave the country its name. Guyana is the Amerindian word for “land of waters”. One of the rivers, the Corentyne, defines the border with Venezuela as far as Guyana is concerned, that is. Venezuela, the world’s sixth-largest oil producer, has a long-standing territorial claim to almost half of Guyana, not unconnected to the fact that oil has been discovered off the coast.
In June last year Guyana’s eastern neighbour Surinam sent out gunboats to chase away Canadian oil prospectors working on a Guyanese concession. Four days of talks between the two countries brought no conclusion. Surinam isn’t often in the news but it does have one characteristic that puts it on top of the world: it has the most reported crime per 100 000 people.
The land to the south of the coastal strip where South Africa will play cricket is sometimes called the Empty Land, but that doesn’t mean there’s no one there. It’s just that the 30000 Amerindians who live there are very, very spread out. About 77% of Guyana is covered in forest and, for the adventurous souls in the touring party, there’s lots to see in the jungle.
There’s the pingo, a savage pig weighing 30kg that hunts in 200-strong packs, and the barking, roaring Black Caiman crocodile, or the capybara or water pig, the world’s largest rodent at 55kg. Snake lovers can look for the anaconda or the 3,5m bushmaster with its extra-long fangs. Guyana is also home to the three-toed sloth, which is awake for just four hours a day.
There is an argument for making like a sloth. For those of us who don’t have to run about there’s a chance to sample Guyana’s famous rum. Apparently they export more than half of the 13-million litres they produce each year. I’ve read that the Georgetown Cricket Club has the world’s only authentic hangover cure (gin and coconut water with a dash of bitters) so the crocs and serpents may have to wait for another visit.