A forgotten cricket calypso
In this week’s edition of In Search of West Indies Cricket, Roger Seymour continues the calypso in cricket theme from last week, by looking at a calypso composed by a West Indian cricketer which was probably better known in Australia and New Zealand than
“One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain” -
Music has been a vital cog on many West Indies’ cricket tours. Apart from passing time and providing entertainment, it’s an easy avenue to cultivating team spirit and camaraderie. Among the numerous anecdotes and historical documentations, are rare (copyrighted) photographs of the 1928 West Indies team, the first official Test side, learning the Tile Trot dance steps during the annual September Scarborough Cricket Festival in Yorkshire. The festival, which dates back to 1876, signals the end of the first class season in England.
The majority of the West Indies team for the 1948/49 Tour of India – the Guianese, Trinidadian and Barbadian contingents – departed from Trinidad on the SS Cavina, a banana boat, on 19th September for England, via Jamaica, where George Headley boarded at Bowden. It was a long trip and the boat finally docked on 12th October at Avonmouth, near Bristol. In “Jeffrey Stollmeyer’s Diary” – an extremely detailed account of the India Tour extracted from the daily letters Jeffrey penned to his wife Sara, which she faithfully preserved for many years before they formed the basis of the 2004 book – the scribe recalled the team bonding over the singing of calypsoes. The young Trinidadian opening batsman composed two calypsoes (not cricket related), “Perspiration on the Cavina” and “Excursion to England” on the trip, which the team, accompanied by Trinidadian fast bowler Prior Jones on piano, duly sang at the boat’s farewell concert party, stealing the show. The musical tone for future touring parties was cast on that initial leg of the first post-war trip. The team, which was joined by Jimmy Cameron, a student in England, then departed from Heathrow Airport in London on 16th October on an Air India flight and arrived in Bombay on 17th October.
In Chapter Eight of his book “History of West Indies Cricket Through Calypsoes” (2016), Nasser
Khan wrote: “There would have been many other calypsoes sung to herald the various cricket personalities and topics of the day … that have not been recorded or documented.”
The cricketing world had been introduced to the art form of the calypso following the glorious West Indies’ victory in the Second Test at Lord’s in 1950. Its arrival Down Under on the 1951/52 West Indies Tour of Australia and New Zealand (In Search of West Indies Cricket – Christmas cricket Down Under, 24th December, 2023) was duly recorded in “Straight Hit!” (1952) by Keith Miller and R S Whitington, one of several published accounts of the tour.
Miller, an outstanding all-rounder, is best remembered for the lethal new ball partnership he formed with Ray Lindwall. Miller played 56 Test matches for Australia between 1946 and 1956, scored 2,958 runs at an average of 36.97, and took 170 wickets at the miserly cost of 22.97. Miller scored four centuries against the West Indies in ten Test matches in two series; 129 in the first innings of the Second Test of the 1951/52 tour at Sydney, and three on the 1955 Australian tour of the Caribbean. West Indies Captain John Goddard once voiced, “Give us Keith Miller and we’d beat the world.” Having crossed paths with the legend Don Bradman, the Godfather of Australian cricket, he was never honoured with the Test captaincy.
Richard Smallpeice Whitington was a former South Australian cricketer who became a prominent journalist and writer. He wrote several books on cricket; seven collaborations with Miller, three with other individuals, and 16 on his own.
“Straight Hit!” is composed of 12 chapters divided into two parts, with the second half dedicated to the West Indies vs Australia Test series. In Chapter Six, ‘Calypso Intermezzo’ the authors delve into the depths of the calypso and the West Indies team’s resilient spirit, which was often kept alive by their merciless “ragging” of each other. Here is an excerpt from that chapter.
“Some Australians gained the impression from a series of jaundiced reports that the West Indian party was given to galas of gloom and delusions of depression. On the contrary, whether the team had just won a Test against Australia or lost a minor game as a consequence of a day of dropped catches or suicidal batting sacrifices, the team’s Calypso commandants, Jeff Stollmeyer, Gerry Gomez and Simpson Guillen (all Trinidadians), would form a group around the hotel piano (often assisted by BBC Representative Ernest Eytle, a former West Indian [Guyanese] now resident in England) and strike up such famous calypso tunes as ‘The Peanut Vendor’, ‘Rum and CocaCola’, ‘Kitch’ – the song of the girl Bernice, ‘Nora’ and others of more Bohemian inspiration.”
The writers noted that Ramadhin was prominently featured in the calypsoes written subsequent to the 1950 Lord’s victory. Down Under he was often the favoured target of the team’s “ragging” as portrayed in “the 1951-2 West Indies team’s hit song ‘Hassett and Ramadhin’, which was composed by the French-descended Guillen after Hassett and Miller had made the first Australian stride towards exploding the mysteries of Sonny’s perplexing delivery.
“We now reproduce the words of this song with ‘Sammy’ Guillen’s kind permission.
“Hassett and Ramadhin Verse I
Ram called Hassett a rabbit,
But the Indian boy he regret it.
Ram called Hassett a rabbit,
But the Indian boy he regret it.
Ram bowled seriously,
But he was knocked to the boundary, Hassett made a century,
And Miller followed immediately.
Chorus
We want Ramadhin on the ball
We want Ramadhin on the ball
We want Ramadhin on the ball
Keep want him on the ball and a lot of runs on the board
Verse II
Val bowling at one end,
And Hassett started to defend. Skipper John got a headache,