Englishmen at Beausejour

What are two Englishmen doing in an India v West Indies Test? Watching, maybe. Peter Chismon and Danny Byrne are two globetrotting fans, who travel to various venues, irrespective of the sides playing. Both try their best to visit new venues – they were at Fatullah and Chittagong for the Australia series recently – and decided to watch the India Tests at St Lucia and St Kitts.

Chismon, a 64-year-old from Ipswich, who retired from his job of selling guns at West End a few years ago, concentrates on the game by scoring it. He makes sure he scores the game whenever he visits a venue for the first time and proudly shows his notepad where he scored the recent Australia-Bangladesh Test at Chittagong. Jason Gillespie, whose double-hundred in that match sent heads spinning in various directions, was kind enough to autograph it. That tour to Bangladesh also meant that Chismon had now watched cricket in all Test playing nations.

Both love to visit the stadium a day before the game, get good seats, chat with the groundsmen about the pitch and mix around with the players. Having travelled the world for nearly ten years, they are recognised by a few players as well.

With both planning their tours well in advance, they’ve been often done in by itinerary hassles. During Pakistan’s visit to India in 2005, they’d initially booked tickets for Ahmedabad, the initial proposed venue for the first Test, but were left high and dry after the game was shifted to Mohali.

Byrne speaks about a plan to publish an annual later this year, in conjunction with his fellow itinerant, John Woods, an Irishman who spent 18 months touring the world to bring out a guide to every Test ground in the world.

The strap tells you the sort of book it promises to be – by supporters for supporters world wide - and Byrne is set to write two articles on the Tests at St Lucia and St Kitts. There is also a reference to CLR James’s famous books in the slug, one which says the book is ‘written from beyond the boundary’. In this case, literally.