Tuesday, April 20, 2010
CRICKET: Irrelevant trouble or issue for concern
By Steinberg Henry
When I heard names of countries participating in the ICC World Twenty20 West Indies 2010 action featuring Sri Lanka, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Australia, England, Afghanistan, Ireland, South Africa and West Indies, I paused to consider a recent past. What if, in an effort at demonstrating openness, the West Indies and the ICC attracted terror into the region?
On reflection, it occurred to me that these thoughts might have arisen because of my immersion in a manuscript I was working on entitled For New Times Sake (BlackMemory, A Traveloguer & Cricket). In that manuscript which I hope to publish, the West Indies versus Bangladesh game played in Dominica in July 2009 was archived.
That game was the first international sport to be played at the island’s Windsor Park Stadium; a $40 million gift to Dominica from the government of the Peoples Republic Of China. Being Dominican, the West Indies/Bangladesh game caught my attention and the dynamic that is cricket in the Caribbean caused me to draw on cricketing events as they unfolded thereafter.
As the research process developed, I noticed that a banning of sorts of items that could be brought into a West Indian cricket game had been discussed three years before, and parts thereof touched terrorism.
On November 6, 2006, a writer named Tony Becca developed a piece for the Jamaica Gleaner entitled From The Boundary: Let’s Do It The West Indian Way. At a cricket game, West Indians would be allowed or encouraged to buy hot-dogs or hamburgers, yet would not be permitted to enter with the slow food prepared at home and packed into a basket.
According to Becca, “Although the organisers, those in England and those in the West Indies, have not spelled out what will not be allowed, it is understood that apart from large baskets and hampers, the banned items will include large flags, drums and noise-making metals such, as pot covers, horns and shells.” Note who were the 2007 World Cup organizers.
Becca adds, “While the banning of baskets and hampers is understandable in this day and age, when every dollar and every cent counts in the bid to make as much money as possible, while the banning of metals may be understandable in this day and age of terrorism, it is difficult to understand why the banned items at cricket matches in the West Indies will include flags, large or small, horns and shells” http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20061106/sports/sports7.html.
Terror had entered a cultural-expression discourse. Almost five months later, on April 18, 2007, Herbbie Miller was running a four-part series of articles on behalf of the Jamaica Observer on the theme Beyond A Boundary: Placing The Game Of Cricket And The On-Going World Cup In A Cultural Context.
At one point, he asked this powerful question. “How could we once again allow the silencing of our drums, our conch shells, and our voices and keep still feet that are fancy-free?
Simple.” In that said Part Two, thematically subtitled Cricket And Resistance, he noted that cricket was first “introduced as early as the eighteenth century as a planter or gentleman's game during the British-maintained 'slavocracy', and when drums and horns were routinely banned because of the fear they would stir collective support for rebellions, cricket became - for the enslaved - another mode of resistance.
It was opposition and resistance to slavery that first forced the British banning in 1807 of the trade in Africans, its two hundredth anniversary we officially recognize, ironically, at the same time we host Cricket World Cup” )www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/html/20070417T190000-0500_121895_OBS_BEYOND_A_BOUNDARY_PT_II__OF_FOUR__.asp.
These were concerns – those of collective resistance – that C L R James and David Rudder echoed.
Before the open rise of terror in sports, cricket transcended the West Indian boundary eliciting heated debates that were historical, philosophical, intellectual, social.
In fact, issues regarding performance of the Windies team permeated community with a passion incomparable. Clearly, the game was contextualized in Caribbean politics too, but never in an environment prone to terror attacks.
For instance on Tuesday March 3, 2009 what happened in Lahore, Pakistan, had never erupted before, during or after a game in the West Indies. At least a dozen men ambushed Sri Lanka's cricket team with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers.
The Associated Press story was written by Rizwan Ali with joint contributions from Krishan Francis and Ravi Nessman in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Zarar Khan and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, and Babar Dogar in Lahore.
They wrote, “Seven players, an umpire and a coach were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries, but six policemen and a driver died.”
Seven players and an umpire wounded in a West Indian city would hurt, and while such sentiments could not be transported by paper in Associated Press, not even when appropriate words were carefully selected, the death of six policemen and a driver ran deep into community and communion among friends, loved-ones, wives, Mothers and Fathers anywhere in the sporting world and Third World yards, archaeologizing painful memories.
“The attackers struck as a convoy carrying the squad and match officials reached a traffic circle 300 yards (meters) from the main sports stadium in the eastern city of Lahore, triggering a 15-minute gun-battle with police guarding the vehicles.” Police were guarding the vehicles? I guess, considering what had happened in Mumbai in November.
Players might’ve been gathering up thoughts, those in love with cricket, as they approached their favourite site and play space. They would soon be out of traffic, in an area surrounded and presumably protected. The exogenous shock was perfect.
“The assault, just ahead of a match, was one of the worst terrorist attacks on a sports team since Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.” Wow, look how far they went to find traces, memories of this one, one fitting clearly into the terror narrative gripping globalism.
“By attacking South Asia's most popular sport, the gunmen guaranteed themselves tremendous international attention while demonstrating Pakistan's struggle to provide its 170 million people with basic security as it battles a raging Islamist militancy.”
Pakistan did not expect an attack on a cricket team. There was an unspoken silence touching cricket’s neutrality – it was the place where we argued and agreed to agree. This was South Asia’s most popular sport.
It was the same in the West indies, tearing us apart or bringing us together, causing us to smile to remember, to historicize, to use battle metaphors but never meaning guns, grenades, knives, bazookas etcetera. In that fifteen minute battle how many bullets were fired?
What is the cost of a bullet produced in such large manufacturing concerns in Pakistan? “The bus driver, Mohammad Khalil, accelerated as bullets ripped into the vehicle and explosions rocked the air, steering the team to the safety of the stadium. The players — some of them wounded — ducked down and shouted ‘Go! Go!’ as he drove through the ambush.”
City Police Chief Haji Habibur Rehman said the attackers melted into the city hustle and buzz, not to mention tension, women running with their children, cars, trucks moving away from the action, bullets hitting off walls.
Those attackers abandoned their “machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and plastic explosives, backpacks stuffed with dried fruit, mineral water and walkie-talkies.”
Rizman Ali et al continued. “Tuesday's attack in Pakistan came three months after the Mumbai terror strikes .… Both were coordinated, used multiple gunmen, apparently in teams of two, who were armed with explosives and assault rifles and apparently had little fear of death or capture.
Authorities canceled the test match against Pakistan's national team, and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa ordered his foreign minister to immediately travel to Pakistan to help assist in the team's evacuation …” www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/dpg_Gunmen_Attack_Sri_Lankan_Cricket_Team2223058
Could you imagine India batting against an enemy in its neighboring land, both well-known politically, to be loaded nuclear? West Indian nuclear energy and history of concentration resided in souls, minds and bodies of Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Lawrence Rowe, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge, Colin Croft, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Deryck Murray. Those are the precious ones.
In South Africa, on September 23, 2009, Pakistan, India’s neighbor, defeated the experimental West Indies – the one which played in Dominica in July 2009.
On that said day of the West Indies versus Pakistan game – September 23 -- the United States government shut down its embassy in Pretoria and its consulates in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg after information indicating terror threats against specific US interests in South Africa.
According to The Christian Science Monitor’s Scott Baldauf, “The US diplomatic shutdown began Tuesday and comes at a time when terrorist organizations have largely shifted their strategy from so-called ‘hard targets,’ such as highly protected facilities like embassies, airports, and US military installations, to ‘soft targets,’ such as train stations, hotels, shopping malls, and sports venues” www.csmonitor.com/2009/0923/p06s04-woaf.html.
Though Scott Baldauf did not link the shutting down to the game, I gather in the context of Pakistan, Mumbai and Lahore, the Us was taking no chances.
As an aside, in that game, West Indies garnered 133 all out in 34.3 overs with Nikita Miller getting 51 from 57 balls.
Tonge captured 4 for 25 in his ten overs. Pakistan’s 134 came with 117 balls to spear and five wickets standing. Pakistan’s teenager, Umar Akmal was named Man-Of-The-Match having scored 41 not out. A teenager. Instructive.
On November 26, 2009, while the West Indies were down in Australia, West Indies Cricket Board carried a news item on its site entitled, Resonable Discretion In Security For ICC WT20.
The ICC WT20 West Indies 2010 Security Directorate met in St. Kitt’s, and Trevor Paul, Regional Security Manager came out of that meeting saying that security for the May 2010 ICC World Twenty20 tournament is well on the way.
“Enforcement,” he said, “will be mixed with a sense of allowing spectators some latitude to express their passion for the sport.” He went on to say further that, “We’re trying to find a policy that reflects reasonable discretion as to what fans can and cannot bring into the venues.
With respect to the consumption of alcohol within the stadium, there is a liquor policy and glass containers will not be allowed” (www.windiescricket.com).
It’s crucial to note that he left out comments on drums, horns and conchs and included alcohol. That was all the WICB was prepared to reveal regarding security – that which mirrored in part, concerns expressed in 2006 by Becca and in 2007 by Miller.
It is very possible that their in-depth deliberations at that St. Kitt’s meeting were not for public consumption, likely as they were, to conjure public concern over the April to May games in the Caribbean.
But they were quite aware of the April-May participating teams; the Mumbai attacks disrupting England’s game against India; the Lahore attack and its bloody results; and the current choice by terrorists of soft targets such as sporting venues – a concern raised by Scott Baldauf for the Christian Science Monitor during the West Indies versus Pakistan game in South Africa.
On Saturday May 1, 2010, international cricket crowds will witness history when Afghanistan makes its debut in a top-level match challenging India where, on Saturday April 17, 2010, two bombs went off outside a cricket stadium in the Southern Indian city of Bangalore.
Afghanistan could well be an attraction, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka may well put on the best show of their cricketing history.
Sold out West Indian games and the festive spirit gripping each, may just be the environment in which all warring factions should conduct sporting activities.
How global terror is transported these days, is however worth the consideration of the Caribbean’s Regional Security System and the region’s governments.
The India blasts, according to Graham Fitzgerald, “came amid heightened fears over security at sporting events in India, which is due to host the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in October.”
When I heard names of countries participating in the ICC World Twenty20 West Indies 2010 action featuring Sri Lanka, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Australia, England, Afghanistan, Ireland, South Africa and West Indies, I paused to consider a recent past. What if, in an effort at demonstrating openness, the West Indies and the ICC attracted terror into the region?
 The Bangladesh cricket team celebrates victory over the West Indies in 2009. |
On reflection, it occurred to me that these thoughts might have arisen because of my immersion in a manuscript I was working on entitled For New Times Sake (BlackMemory, A Traveloguer & Cricket). In that manuscript which I hope to publish, the West Indies versus Bangladesh game played in Dominica in July 2009 was archived.
That game was the first international sport to be played at the island’s Windsor Park Stadium; a $40 million gift to Dominica from the government of the Peoples Republic Of China. Being Dominican, the West Indies/Bangladesh game caught my attention and the dynamic that is cricket in the Caribbean caused me to draw on cricketing events as they unfolded thereafter.
As the research process developed, I noticed that a banning of sorts of items that could be brought into a West Indian cricket game had been discussed three years before, and parts thereof touched terrorism.
On November 6, 2006, a writer named Tony Becca developed a piece for the Jamaica Gleaner entitled From The Boundary: Let’s Do It The West Indian Way. At a cricket game, West Indians would be allowed or encouraged to buy hot-dogs or hamburgers, yet would not be permitted to enter with the slow food prepared at home and packed into a basket.
According to Becca, “Although the organisers, those in England and those in the West Indies, have not spelled out what will not be allowed, it is understood that apart from large baskets and hampers, the banned items will include large flags, drums and noise-making metals such, as pot covers, horns and shells.” Note who were the 2007 World Cup organizers.
Becca adds, “While the banning of baskets and hampers is understandable in this day and age, when every dollar and every cent counts in the bid to make as much money as possible, while the banning of metals may be understandable in this day and age of terrorism, it is difficult to understand why the banned items at cricket matches in the West Indies will include flags, large or small, horns and shells” http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20061106/sports/sports7.html.
Terror had entered a cultural-expression discourse. Almost five months later, on April 18, 2007, Herbbie Miller was running a four-part series of articles on behalf of the Jamaica Observer on the theme Beyond A Boundary: Placing The Game Of Cricket And The On-Going World Cup In A Cultural Context.
At one point, he asked this powerful question. “How could we once again allow the silencing of our drums, our conch shells, and our voices and keep still feet that are fancy-free?
Simple.” In that said Part Two, thematically subtitled Cricket And Resistance, he noted that cricket was first “introduced as early as the eighteenth century as a planter or gentleman's game during the British-maintained 'slavocracy', and when drums and horns were routinely banned because of the fear they would stir collective support for rebellions, cricket became - for the enslaved - another mode of resistance.
It was opposition and resistance to slavery that first forced the British banning in 1807 of the trade in Africans, its two hundredth anniversary we officially recognize, ironically, at the same time we host Cricket World Cup” )www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/html/20070417T190000-0500_121895_OBS_BEYOND_A_BOUNDARY_PT_II__OF_FOUR__.asp.
These were concerns – those of collective resistance – that C L R James and David Rudder echoed.
Before the open rise of terror in sports, cricket transcended the West Indian boundary eliciting heated debates that were historical, philosophical, intellectual, social.
In fact, issues regarding performance of the Windies team permeated community with a passion incomparable. Clearly, the game was contextualized in Caribbean politics too, but never in an environment prone to terror attacks.
For instance on Tuesday March 3, 2009 what happened in Lahore, Pakistan, had never erupted before, during or after a game in the West Indies. At least a dozen men ambushed Sri Lanka's cricket team with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers.
The Associated Press story was written by Rizwan Ali with joint contributions from Krishan Francis and Ravi Nessman in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Zarar Khan and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, and Babar Dogar in Lahore.
They wrote, “Seven players, an umpire and a coach were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries, but six policemen and a driver died.”
Seven players and an umpire wounded in a West Indian city would hurt, and while such sentiments could not be transported by paper in Associated Press, not even when appropriate words were carefully selected, the death of six policemen and a driver ran deep into community and communion among friends, loved-ones, wives, Mothers and Fathers anywhere in the sporting world and Third World yards, archaeologizing painful memories.
“The attackers struck as a convoy carrying the squad and match officials reached a traffic circle 300 yards (meters) from the main sports stadium in the eastern city of Lahore, triggering a 15-minute gun-battle with police guarding the vehicles.” Police were guarding the vehicles? I guess, considering what had happened in Mumbai in November.
Players might’ve been gathering up thoughts, those in love with cricket, as they approached their favourite site and play space. They would soon be out of traffic, in an area surrounded and presumably protected. The exogenous shock was perfect.
“The assault, just ahead of a match, was one of the worst terrorist attacks on a sports team since Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.” Wow, look how far they went to find traces, memories of this one, one fitting clearly into the terror narrative gripping globalism.
“By attacking South Asia's most popular sport, the gunmen guaranteed themselves tremendous international attention while demonstrating Pakistan's struggle to provide its 170 million people with basic security as it battles a raging Islamist militancy.”
Pakistan did not expect an attack on a cricket team. There was an unspoken silence touching cricket’s neutrality – it was the place where we argued and agreed to agree. This was South Asia’s most popular sport.
It was the same in the West indies, tearing us apart or bringing us together, causing us to smile to remember, to historicize, to use battle metaphors but never meaning guns, grenades, knives, bazookas etcetera. In that fifteen minute battle how many bullets were fired?
What is the cost of a bullet produced in such large manufacturing concerns in Pakistan? “The bus driver, Mohammad Khalil, accelerated as bullets ripped into the vehicle and explosions rocked the air, steering the team to the safety of the stadium. The players — some of them wounded — ducked down and shouted ‘Go! Go!’ as he drove through the ambush.”
City Police Chief Haji Habibur Rehman said the attackers melted into the city hustle and buzz, not to mention tension, women running with their children, cars, trucks moving away from the action, bullets hitting off walls.
Those attackers abandoned their “machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and plastic explosives, backpacks stuffed with dried fruit, mineral water and walkie-talkies.”
Rizman Ali et al continued. “Tuesday's attack in Pakistan came three months after the Mumbai terror strikes .… Both were coordinated, used multiple gunmen, apparently in teams of two, who were armed with explosives and assault rifles and apparently had little fear of death or capture.
Authorities canceled the test match against Pakistan's national team, and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa ordered his foreign minister to immediately travel to Pakistan to help assist in the team's evacuation …” www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/dpg_Gunmen_Attack_Sri_Lankan_Cricket_Team2223058
Could you imagine India batting against an enemy in its neighboring land, both well-known politically, to be loaded nuclear? West Indian nuclear energy and history of concentration resided in souls, minds and bodies of Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Lawrence Rowe, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge, Colin Croft, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Deryck Murray. Those are the precious ones.
In South Africa, on September 23, 2009, Pakistan, India’s neighbor, defeated the experimental West Indies – the one which played in Dominica in July 2009.
On that said day of the West Indies versus Pakistan game – September 23 -- the United States government shut down its embassy in Pretoria and its consulates in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg after information indicating terror threats against specific US interests in South Africa.
According to The Christian Science Monitor’s Scott Baldauf, “The US diplomatic shutdown began Tuesday and comes at a time when terrorist organizations have largely shifted their strategy from so-called ‘hard targets,’ such as highly protected facilities like embassies, airports, and US military installations, to ‘soft targets,’ such as train stations, hotels, shopping malls, and sports venues” www.csmonitor.com/2009/0923/p06s04-woaf.html.
Though Scott Baldauf did not link the shutting down to the game, I gather in the context of Pakistan, Mumbai and Lahore, the Us was taking no chances.
As an aside, in that game, West Indies garnered 133 all out in 34.3 overs with Nikita Miller getting 51 from 57 balls.
Tonge captured 4 for 25 in his ten overs. Pakistan’s 134 came with 117 balls to spear and five wickets standing. Pakistan’s teenager, Umar Akmal was named Man-Of-The-Match having scored 41 not out. A teenager. Instructive.
On November 26, 2009, while the West Indies were down in Australia, West Indies Cricket Board carried a news item on its site entitled, Resonable Discretion In Security For ICC WT20.
The ICC WT20 West Indies 2010 Security Directorate met in St. Kitt’s, and Trevor Paul, Regional Security Manager came out of that meeting saying that security for the May 2010 ICC World Twenty20 tournament is well on the way.
“Enforcement,” he said, “will be mixed with a sense of allowing spectators some latitude to express their passion for the sport.” He went on to say further that, “We’re trying to find a policy that reflects reasonable discretion as to what fans can and cannot bring into the venues.
With respect to the consumption of alcohol within the stadium, there is a liquor policy and glass containers will not be allowed” (www.windiescricket.com).
It’s crucial to note that he left out comments on drums, horns and conchs and included alcohol. That was all the WICB was prepared to reveal regarding security – that which mirrored in part, concerns expressed in 2006 by Becca and in 2007 by Miller.
It is very possible that their in-depth deliberations at that St. Kitt’s meeting were not for public consumption, likely as they were, to conjure public concern over the April to May games in the Caribbean.
But they were quite aware of the April-May participating teams; the Mumbai attacks disrupting England’s game against India; the Lahore attack and its bloody results; and the current choice by terrorists of soft targets such as sporting venues – a concern raised by Scott Baldauf for the Christian Science Monitor during the West Indies versus Pakistan game in South Africa.
On Saturday May 1, 2010, international cricket crowds will witness history when Afghanistan makes its debut in a top-level match challenging India where, on Saturday April 17, 2010, two bombs went off outside a cricket stadium in the Southern Indian city of Bangalore.
Afghanistan could well be an attraction, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka may well put on the best show of their cricketing history.
Sold out West Indian games and the festive spirit gripping each, may just be the environment in which all warring factions should conduct sporting activities.
How global terror is transported these days, is however worth the consideration of the Caribbean’s Regional Security System and the region’s governments.
The India blasts, according to Graham Fitzgerald, “came amid heightened fears over security at sporting events in India, which is due to host the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in October.”
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// posted by TheDominican.net @ 4:53 PM
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Great read. Very interested observation. Clearly there is something to think about.
# posted by 
: April 28, 2010 7:22 PM
: April 28, 2010 7:22 PM Links to this post:
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