The Sri Lankan cricket team is currently in Antigua, one of the major tourist attractions in the Caribbean. The island is promoted as the ultimate romantic getaway with more than 300 beaches.
The population of this tiny island is less than 90,000. The Sri Lankans will spend their entire stay in the Caribbean in Antigua playing all their games in this island alone due to travel restrictions and quarantine rules.
A lot of people including quite a few Sri Lankan cricketers pronounce the name of the island wrong: when you say Antigua, ‘u’ remains silent. So it is actually pronounced as ‘Antiga’.
The Sri Lankan team is in a bubble and their movements are restricted but they will do well if they can follow health guidelines and visit a few places to learn some of the historic moments in Antigua and gutsy efforts by our own players in the years gone by.
In Swetes, a village 11 kilometers from the capital St. John’s, lives cricket’s most famous mother; Hillie Ambrose. Every time her son Curtly took a Test wicket, she would run out of the house and ring the bell on the streets. The locals would have had a torrid time when he finished with eight wickets against Sri Lanka in their inaugural Test match in the Caribbean in 1997 in the nearby Recreation Grounds.
This game had it all. On a green top, after Ambrose had blown away the top order – Mahanama (1), Arnold (0) and Aravinda (0) inside the first half-hour – Arjuna Ranatunga (42) and Jayasuriya (85) showed character taking some painful blows on the body not throwing in the towel.
Hashan Tillekeratne batted without an arm guard, a decision he would regret as he was left with a broken arm. This was fast bowling at its best and Test cricket wasn’t for the faint hearted. Late Bruce Yardley, Sri Lanka’s coach called it a ‘crap pitch’. Sri Lanka went down fighting losing the game by six wickets.
The Sri Lankans of course will not be playing at the Recreation Ground as the venue has ceased to host international games any longer. Instead they will be playing the T 20s at Allen Stanford’s cricket ground.
Who is Allen Stanford? He was a businessman who loved cricket. He had dual citizenships – in Antigua and US. In 2008, he signed a multi-million dollar deal with England and Wales Cricket Board. In a publicity stunt, Stanford flew to Lord’s in his private helicopter filled with fake dollar notes. ECB had agreed to play a series of T-20 games in Antigua and players were being paid handsomely; a distraction to keep the players away from IPL, the ECB thought.
Cricket bigwigs were left with egg on the face when Stanford was charged by FBI for fraud a few months later. Currently, he is serving a 110 year jail term in the US for fraud, there are cricket frauds everywhere!!
The ODI and Test series will be played at Sir Viv Richards Stadium. The Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean in 2007 saw some new grounds coming to the fore. Antigua was one island to benefit but the locals weren’t too happy that cricket was being shifted from a venue that had staged many a historic game – The Recreation ground.
The official reason that was put out was that other sports too like football and athletics were being played at Recreation ground and the island needed a ground dedicated to cricket. They were also talking of better facilities for players and press. But the fact of the matter is that the authorities were looking at the commercial side of it when they made the decision to move cricket to a new venue. The press loved the old ground as you were so close to the action. It was like if you put out your head, you are almost at earshot to second slip!
There’s been a lot said and written about prisoners being used as ground staff when games are being played in Sri Lanka particularly at Pallekele and P. Sara Oval. The practice was first started at Recreation ground where inmates of the adjoining prison worked as ground staff. The warden of the prison was Malcolm Richards, father of Sir Viv. The other famous cricketers from Antigua are Andy Roberts and Richie Richardson.
It was at this venue that Brian Lara posted 375 to break Sir Garry Sobers’ long standing record for highest individual score in Test match cricket. Ten years later, after the record had been taken away from him by Mathew Hayden, Lara raised the benchmark again – this time posting 400. Recreation ground witnessed both the epics.
A year prior to that, the venue had witnessed the highest successful run chase in Test cricket – 418 by West Indies against Steve Waugh’s Aussies in 2003.
It was also here Sir Viv smashed a Test match hundred in 56 balls against hapless England bowling in 1986. For the next 31 years, this remained the fastest hundred in Test match cricket.
Antigua is an island with a rich cricket tradition where some of sport’s finest moments occurred. There were also not so fondest ones like the Stanford games. Over the next few weeks, Sri Lanka’s cricketers will do well to study the impact Antigua has had on world cricket. It’s history as locals worked as slaves and the scars of which left an indelible mark on some of the all time greats of the sport who felt compelled to raise their games against their colonial masters. Then of course there are lovely people like Hillie in Swetes village. Thank god her son didn’t pursue his basketball ambitions.
