The day the Empire struck back

Writer Nasser Khan has been reflecting on events that have shaped T&T’s social history. In the fourth of his series History Through Calypso, Khan highlights our love of cricket and has chosen the calypso, Cricket Lovely Cricket by Lord Beginner. 

 

Cricket history records that T&T’s greatest spin bowler to date Sonny Ramadhin, and Jamaica’s Alfred Valentine, versus England at Lord’s cricket ground in June 1950, heralded a new era, the coming of age of West Indies cricket, after soundly trouncing our colonists, the British, for the first time and in their own backyard. 

 

The “spin twins,” whose names became inextricably linked in the annals of cricketing history, were part of that formidable team which also comprised of Prior Jones, Jeffery Stollmeyer and Gerry Gomez from T&T.

 

This memorable occasion in our regional sporting history was captured in a number of calypsoes at the time, none more memorable than the immortal Victory Test Match (aka Cricket lovely Cricket by Lord Beginner (Egbert Moore), a match in which our legendary mystery spin bowler, cap on and with long-sleeve shirt buttoned at the wrist, weaved a tangled web around the English batsmen to end up with match bowling figures of 5 for 66 in 43 overs and 6 for 86 in 72 overs. Two other calypsoes at the time that heralded this famous victory were King Radio’s (Norman Spann) Ramadhin On The Ball and Cricket Calypso by Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts).

 

Calypso and cricket go hand in hand with West Indian culture and can be considered as two of the strongest ties that bind us (and sometimes divide us) as a region. In fact, our cricketers were dubbed from early on as Calypso Cricketers, reflective of our rhythmic exuberance and our flashy brand of play. 

 

To the world, the region’s national anthem is David Rudder’s calypso Rally Round The West Indies which is played before the start of international games. There are over 140 “cricket calypsoes” documented by American calypso researcher Ray Funk who has been compiling them all for an upcoming publication.

 

In recent times the West Indies cricket team has captured the World Cup T20 trophy and has reeled off a number of Test match victories against New Zealand and Bangladesh, albeit two weaker teams on the rungs of the cricketing ladder. 

 

But fans have been starved of winning ways since the glory days of the past, eras such as the late 1970s to the early 1990s when our regional team was virtually unbeatable. 

 

There were sporadic moments of glory before that such as the ODI World Cup wins in 1975 and after that such as the Champions Trophy victory under Brian Lara in 2004. But probably the most noteworthy victory outside of these was that of 1950, beautifully captured in calypso. 

 

To view the scorecard of the historic 1950 game, visit www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/62710.html

 

It is sad that to date there is no central calypso archive in Trinidad and Tobago where, like no book can, our history can be heard through the lyrical content of countless calypsoes of the day. We probably will lament the not-too-far-off day when another country might lay claim to such an archive.