Brian Lara on the Red Stripe: Hooper's out for vengeance (12 Oct 1997)

Sunday, October 12, 1997

Brian Lara: Hooper's out for vengeance

Day Seven

CARL Hooper and company are headed to Jamaica with one thing in mind: to avenge their defeat at our hands in the finals last year, and to go on to win the Red Stripe Bowl. Yes, we are meeting Guyana again. This time, not in the finals, but in the semis. We earned our semi-final spot mainly through the intervention of rain, leaving the organisers no choice but to pick the semifinalists from the points system in the preliminary round of our zone. T&T, with four points from two wins and a loss, bettered the Windwards' three points from one win, a loss, and a no-result.

I, along with the entire T&T team, would have preferred playing and beating the Windwards than getting through because the quarterfinal was abandoned.

It was impossible for any cricket to be played at Chedwin Park where the conditions were more suited to a game of water polo.

It's fair to say the Windward Islands felt cheated. Let's go back to the third round game in the preliminary stages: T&T vs the Windwards, which turned out to be our key match. Originally carded for Folly in Port Antonio, officials rescheduled it for Melbourne in Kingston after a week of constant rain. We won, and moved into second place. If that arrangement had not been made, and we had travelled to Folly, both teams would have been left with one point each from a no-result.

What would that have meant? Windward Islands maintaining second position behind Jamaica with four points, and T&T having to settle for third with three. T&T would have been heading back home!. You must feel a bit of pity for them: Chedwin Park is known to be a ground that gets very waterlogged so why couldn't this match be moved to another ground justlike the earlier encounter?

I'm not being a pessimist, but Trinidad and Tobago now stand in the shoes of the Windwards when we meet Guyana on Saturday. If rain causes the abandonment of the semis, Guyana will go through to the finals, simply because they won their three games in their zone while we won two and lost one.

We got to the ground today not expecting an early start. Dominoes, and a little hand-held computer game, called Tetris took up the guys' free time. I participated, but I was never a threat. Bish when free seems to do nothing else but play Nintendo, and he edged out Lincoln Roberts to be our Tetris champ. Hazel won almost every domino game.

I arriving in Trinidad today, along with the other four Trinidadians on the West Indies team for Pakistan, in order to get ourselves ready for the tour. The entire West Indies team is leaving from Jamaica the day after the Red Stripe Bowl final. While in Trinidad, we will be hoping to get in some practice at the Queen's Park Oval. The rest of the T&T team will be practising in our absence, under the supervision of the manager. Jamaica did get in some cricket and also advanced into the semifinals where they the Leeward Islands. The Bermudians must have fancied themselves a little. They batted first, scoring 193, with Clay Smith notching his second unbeaten century, 101 not out. That 193 might not seem much in a One-day game, but in their three previous games, their scores were 75 for five (vs Windwards), 85 for seven (vs T&T) us, and 88 for two (vs Bermuda). With none of their batsmen so far scoring a half-century, it would have been exciting to see the outcome of their quarterfinal against Bermuda.

Next week is Heroes' weekend here. Hosts Jamaica meet the Leewards on Friday, and on Saturday T&T take on Guyana. The finals are carded for Monday, and along with some reggae artistes such as Buju Banton and Beenie Man, it should be an exciting climax to this Red Stripe Bowl competition. What about some home support, eh, Trini Posse?

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)