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Men of the people

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan is amazed at how approachable the average West Indian cricketer is

Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013


Half-brothers Fidel Edwards and Pedro Collins with their mum outside their home in Boscobelle, Barbados © Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
Most islands in the West Indies require you to shell out a departure tax, a fee of around US $30, usually paid after checking in for your flight. Waiting in a queue at St Kitts airport, at the end of the third India v West Indies Test in 2006, I had the grand fortune of being sandwiched between Clive Lloyd and Gordon Greenidge, as colossal a pair as any in cricket legend. For a brief while, I felt like Sir Viv Richards, another giant who was usually slotted between these two in the West Indian batting line-up of the late 1970s.
I observed Lloyd arguing with the lady at the counter, explaining why he had to pay a reduced tax (I assumed that citizens of the Caribbean islands had to pay less). What was totally unexpected, though, was to see the lady, a stout and serious official, countering Lloyd point for point - "Mr Lloyd, the rules have changed", "Mr Lloyd, we cannot make exceptions" - and not relenting till she had received the exact amount. The bickering went on for close to 10 minutes, and unlike what usually occurred on the cricket field, Lloyd was forced to give in. Imagine Kapil Dev in a similar situation at Delhi airport, or Imran Khan at Lahore. They would never have been in the same queue as the rest, let alone need to argue with airport staff. In January this year, an assistant sub-inspector in Jharkhand was transferred for fining Mahendra Singh Dhoni for having used tinted glass in his car windows. So it was a shock to see Clive Hubert Lloyd - double World Cup-winning captain, brutally effective batsman, archetypal ambassador, et al - debating without much avail. The incident summed up West Indians' attitudes towards their cricketers: respect, but no devotion. It was a trait noticeable through the two-month tour.
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