Even a price cut and victory charge fails to draw local fans
West Indies faces in short supply but at least Bajan economy is booming, says Scyld Berry in Bridgetown
It is postcolonial Test cricket. Even on the fourth day of the first Test, even with West Indies in total command and cruising to victory by 381 runs, even with the sun shining and sea breezes blowing, even on a weekend, almost all the spectators in Kensington Oval were England supporters.
If, for an Ashes Test, the Warner Stand at Lord’s was replaced with a beach and swimming pool which were reserved for Australia’s supporters, because only they could afford the package: that would be the equivalent of the arrangements at the Oval in Barbados, which is still the heartland of West Indian cricket – as evidenced by six of their players, including their captain and double-centurion Jason Holder, being Barbadian.
Police personnel, security staff, vendors, groundsmen, not to mention the players on the home side, all are West Indian. Yet approximately 90 per cent of the spectators have come from England.
The cost of tickets on day four was lowered to 15 Barbadian dollars, less than £6, and still not more than a few hundred Barbadians attended to watch West Indies pursue victory in the opening Test. The TV cameramen have been hard pressed to find different local faces in the crowd to capture their rapture – such as when Holder hit one of England’s hapless spinners for six, or Shannon Gabriel and Kemar Roach have taken a wicket with pace that England have been unable to match – not least because they omitted Stuart Broad.
The Saturday, in particular, of the Barbados Test was the people’s day and especially women’s day. They might bring vegetables from their allotments to sell in the market where the old railway station was, beside the little estuary or Careenage, then walk to the nearby Oval to buy a ticket and sit in the old Kensington Stand, on its rows of wooden benches, and shout their approval for the feats of athleticism by the great West Indian cricketers. Their cricketers.
The Kensington Stand has been replaced by the Greenidge and Haynes Stand, called after arguably the two most famous Barbadian opening batsmen, who could both hit the ball with hammer blows. But though this stand was named after Barbadians, it has been stocked with England supporters. When play resumed on day four, the number of non-white faces in the three tiers of this stand would have been fewer than 100 but for a party of 30 children in their yellow T-shirts.
But this is the way of the modern cricket world. In effect, the only people who not only want to watch Test cricket regularly but can afford to attend on regularly, are England supporters. Some, but by no means all, are members of the Barmy Army – usually the younger ones.
And there are benefits, for all concerned. An independent report commissioned by Cricket West Indies on the economic impact of an England tour concluded that it was worth US$5million (£3.8million) for every day that England were in town, whether for a Test match or a limitedovers international. That adds up to a lot of beer, and fried fish, and Bajan rum, and soft drinks, all locally produced, along with taxi rides.
“The Brits are in Barbados in their thousands,” the editorial in the Daily Nation proclaimed last Thursday. “We are elated about this influx of visitors. Indeed, we are ecstatic.
“With Barbados in the middle of the winter season and tourism a critical foreign exchange earner for the country, this news [that more than 6,000 England fans arrived for the Test] should be welcoming to both the national coffers as well as individual businesses,” this editorial enthused.
Johnny Grave, the chief executive of Cricket West Indies, has said the difference between an England tour and others (all with high costs) is an annual profit of $20million and an annual loss of $20million.
The old connection between the West Indies team and the West Indian people was severed by the board’s administrators, who allowed the sport to decline while paying themselves large salaries and/or lavish expenses. The International Cricket Council gave the board $100million to stage the World Cup of 2007 and leave a long-term legacy: exactly where that money went is not fully apparent.
The current board is trying to mend the fences and bridge the gap again, and any successes by the present team in any format will help, but there is a long way to go – if the Caribbean crowds are anything to go by.
Nevertheless, in the meantime, English cricket is benefiting the economies of Barbados, Antigua and St Lucia. And as the Nation editorial concluded: “We must send an unequivocal message to the Brits. West Indies will beat you at your game, but we will always be friends.”