We attended our first live game yesterday, Sri Lanka v. Bangladesh, at the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain. The stadium (if it can be called that, even with the additional stands built just for the World Cup) was barely half-full, with small pockets of vociferous partisan supporters livening the scene, but mostly just a selection of sedate locals enjoying a calm afternoon of cricket. The result was unsurprising, but served well as an appetiser for the big feast on Friday, the India v. Sri Lanka clash.
Some scattered observations about the match and locale:
-- I had wondered ever since we ordered the game tickets last year what the offer of a "Party Stand" entailed exactly. I knew it might be too much to ask for an actual party atmosphere, given the regulations and security guidelines imposed by the ICC to prevent the spread of too much fun around the grounds, as well as the fact that this was a first-round game held in the middle of the week between two small teams with modest followings. What we got instead from the Party Stand were eight drink vouchers and one meal voucher each, which actually seems like a fairly decent trade-off. Pump enough alcohol and tepid fast food into any fan's system, and any stand becomes a Party Stand, really.
-- Trinis like their music, and they like it loud. Between every over and during every extended break, the house speakers blared short deafening snippets from high-tempo tunes. I'd be all for it, if it wasn't for the utterly humdrum selection of tracks. As far as I can remember, all they had to offer were a few local remixes of overplayed hip-hop-lite hits, an Afro-Cab version of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" sung in Spanish, and a terrible corporate anthem about cricket, full of lines about "the spirit of the game" and "spreading peace and love."
-- In the playing field, the big difference between the so-called 'minnows' and the Big Boyz appears to be how they deal with adversity. Any score to chase beyond 250 makes teams like Bangladesh wilt easily, never even looking like they have a chance. Lower-tier ODI teams like England and West Indies, who just as often face scores slightly beyond their reach, rarely have that deflated look about them right from the start of their innings. Maybe they've just been faced with those situations so many times that they've grown to learn how to hide the obvious and delay the inevitable for longer. Practice makes perfect, after all.
-- Kumar Sangakkara is well on his way to reaching legendary status in his island. He already exudes an air of confidence and know-how on the field that few modern players can claim. Another four or five years at that level and he might reach a similar status on the global stage -- if he doesn't, at least he'll be certain to settle into a nice role as a respected elder statesman and trusted analyst in his retirement.
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