World Cup not for all

As I crossed the street to enter the little used Cheapside Market, I saw my old friend Rufus coming in the opposite direction. It was unusual to see him looking so tired and crestfallen as he did that afternoon.

Naturally I had to find out if he was having more serious problems than when he realised that watching the World Cup next year was going to present him with real challenges.

"Skipper," he began, "I just come from down Pelican by the ticket office and I really can't understand why if I want a ticket for the big final, I can't arrange to buy one. This thing about a package don't make sense.

"It is like the old days when the hawkers in this market used to tell you that if you wanted to get potatoes, you had to buy yams. We should have freedom of choice. I tell you already that this World Cup like it for certain people from over in away. But let me tell you something, I won't be surprised if come next year, they don't be butting 'bout trying to get people to buy tickets at the last minute, and listen, the tickets ain't cheap."

I could understand Rufus' concerns. One would have expected a much more straightforward system that the old-time cricket fans could deal with. Why should one have to pay up front and still not be sure that one's application will succeed?

Rufus was unhappy about the delayed start of the local season. He felt it was about time we kept matters like these out of Coleridge Street. "Boss," he went on, "the boys from Bristol got a good case and you know nowadays everybody demanding their pound of meat like the man in the Shakespeare play."

"But, Rufus," I interjected, "now that you mention meat, I remember a story about the two neighbours who had an altercation over the action of a cat. Apparently, Neighbour A had just bought two pounds of beef and placed it on the kitchen counter. The cat climbed through an open window and quickly disposed of the beef.

Neighbour A was furious, so in an effort to keep the peace, Neighbour B called his cat and weighed it. The cat weighed exactly two pounds. Neighbour B then exclaimed, "All right, skipper, now that is your beef, now where is my cat?"

We both laughed and concluded that relative to the promotion issue, it seems as if people are willing to look after the boys up the hill because from time to time something "honorary" blows in the wind. Things do get hilarious at times.

Rufus was pleased that for a change, West Indies had won a series. "It's a good thing that Mugabe boys did weak. But I feel that a good intermediate team in the 60s would run all over them. The real test is against India who got some men that ain't scared to put bat to ball."

I asked Rufus what he felt about Lara's reappointment as captain. He was not surprised since Trinidad now seemed to be the dominant power in the regional game.

"Boss," he added, "Trinidad got the president, the chairman of selectors, the captain, The WIPA president, everybody. And you know, they got money, fish and half of Barbados. You got to wait and see if the headquarters don't get moved to Port-of-Spain just now."

I asked Rufus if he had seen the advertisement promoting the upcoming Twenty-20 tournament. Like the rest of us, he had heard much of the warranted criticism on the call-in programmes.

"Boss," uttered Rufus, "one of them ads nearly give me a heart attack.

"You can imagine them take big men, some with Sir in front their name and make them look like elementary schoolboys. These is men with dignity, men who refused apartheid dollars and this is what they reducing them to? I hear they get good money but money ain't everything. We got to let this money man know he can't do this to we heroes.

"The authorities better understand that they got to keep certain people far from West Indies cricket. We got to wake up and understand that we must look after we game without looking like beggars."

It was the first time I had seen Rufus so angry but I could understand the reasons. It won't be long now before he loses all interest in the game that was very much a part of his life.