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A letter from Canada

I get a call from the contact person for the Cathedral Cricket Club early last week.

May has arrived warmer and drier than usual in Ottawa. Everyone's shaking off winter blues. A new cricket season has arrived in the nation's capital.

In the land of ice hockey, cricket is still trying to get a toehold. The Sahara Cup has been a sight for sore eyes the last two years. But, cricket is still an almost forgotten sport in these parts. In modern consumerist rush, this purest of games has been trampled over. It refuses to roll over and die however. The presence of a largish expatriate population of West Indians, Indians, Pakistanis and a few from England and Australia keep it going.

This year, we hear the Ottawa league has dissociated itself from the larger Ontario league. Too much money is being asked they say. None of the Ottawa cricketing faithfuls will get noticed when it comes to Canadian trials this year.

But, I don't think anyone seriously cares. Cricket serves more as rejuvenant in these parts, a sort of rediscovery of your roots, yourself. Like poetry, it serves as an outlet, a release from travails of conflicting cultures.

It is a reaffirmation of your non-North American-ness.

The club contact person tells me there is practice starting Friday. And, so last Friday, I take the bus downtown. The Rideau Hall grounds are a bit east of downtown, medium-size grounds in the visible vicinity of the Governor General's house.

I looked out of the bus, the Ottawa river seemed to glisten a bit more than usual. I'd the Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene with me to serve as some sort of intellectual primer to the season ahead. Cricket to me is an intellectual sport.

As I walked onto the grounds, I felt at peace with the world. There were a few of the club members shouting Hello's. I hadn't met most of them for almost a year now. We don't share many interests, but cricket is a powerful bonding force.

Sport makes you forget your differences. I smiled to myself wondering whether it indeed was the Brahman.

Shaking myself from my random reflections, I donned my new track pants. Everyone was a bit hesitant to bat first in the nets. The matting didn't look terribly reassuring.

The Cathedral Cricket Club is mostly Guyanese. A lot of them are from Georgetown. My friend Malcolm tells me there are more Guyanese outside Guyana than inside. He has a tinge of regret in his voice.

The people from the Caribbean are a proud lot. Richards exuded pride, my friend's voice reflected it in equal quantity. Malcolm hadn't turned up for practice on Friday. He's one of the older lot though. He has other responsibilities. Life has taken over from recreation. The mundane from the spontaneous.

The younger ones had come. One of them, a Trinidadian of Indian origin, Raj, opted to bat first. He wasn't a great bat, but he had pluck in considerable quantity. On this not-so-great looking matting, he batted without a helmet. Maybe it was pluck, maybe it was foolhardiness. In any case, he batted with gay abandon.

A few Sri Lankans and I bowled at him, we bowled well within ourselves. The lack of a helmet seemed to bother us more than him. He swung a few lusty left handed swings.

I seemed to be getting some nice legcut. We were bowling with old balls. Bowling with old balls seemed to come to me very naturally. On dusty outfields in Calicut, new balls lost most of their shine in ten overs or less. My friends and I, all of us liked to think we were past masters of old ball cut.

But, I digress.

Someone shouted "last round" and Raj gave way to one of the three Sri Lankan brothers that Cathedral had recruited for the new season. I always associated some sort of mystery with recruiting processes. But I suppose a lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes.

These Sri Lankans were pretty good. One of them, Suravinth, seemed to have modelled his action closely on Muralitharan. Except, he'd done a better job than Muralitharan himself. No doubt could be cast on his action. He generated enormous turn off the matting. He was bowling to his brother who didn't have much trouble picking him.

The best among the brothers, Sudhakar, was bowling medium pace. He uttered a few expletives here and there. He was enjoying himself hugely though. You could see it in his eyes. You could see it in all our eyes.

We were all trying to live our dreams. In moments where we beat the bat, we equated ourselves with Kapil Dev, with Hadlee. When we hit the edge, we experienced minor epiphanies. Cricket has such undying charm.

The second Sri Lankan brother, the offie who got prodigious turn was now batting. I bowled him once. When you bowl someone, you feel on top of the world. The third brother replaced his sibling in a while. I caught his edge a few times. He looked a bit vexed. No good bat likes to get successive edges. He sought to correct his mistakes.

In cricket there's such a thing as an unplayable ball. Much as the perfectionist in you frets over it, it is there, undeniably. Cricket, like life, teaches humility.

But it is the first day of the season. Perfectionism egged on by passion won over realism. Even in this remote cricketing corner. He played a few correct drives.

A fresh-faced youngster turned up all of a sudden. Gold chain dangling from a scrawny neck. He was the son of one of our older teammembers. His father was an extremely fit man for his age. David is a strong man, an aspiring Wayne Daniel in his prime no doubt. His son had a nice, loose-limbed action. He was fast for his age. His gold chain shone in the late evening sunshine. He was the typical West Indian cricketer.

I heard someone comment that he was dressed like a film star. He said that was the way they played cricket in the Islands. I remembered the big gold chain on Dessie Haynes. Yes, definitely, that was the way they played their cricket.

Soon, it was the youngster's turn to bat. I was tiring by now, a pleasant sort of tiredness though, I bowl best when I'm feeling like this. You don't try bowling too fast, you're too tired to do that. You concentrate on cut and swing. I beat the youngster a few times outside off. His eyes showed respect. Cricketers accord a great deal of respect to each other. It's in the nature of the game.

All this while, there were a handful of old men chatting. Grizzled veterans, expressing their opinions on the game. Forceful statements marked their talk.

Some recalled the days when Cathedral was a strong team, some even ventured to say they were unbeatable. I remembered a man of 50 or thereabouts in Montreal, still an active B division player, repeatedly recall a flat six he had hit in his heyday. The younger lot used to chuckle and snigger.

The Ottawa lot weren't inclined to as much fantasy. They were a more practical people. And, I'm not sure whether as a direct consequence, but, they were nicer too.

The people from the Caribbean are an opinionated lot, fiercely so, in most cases.

I remembered Greenidge's square cuts, Lloyd's cover drives. They were powerful statements. The old men at the nets and in the pavilion were of a piece with these.

A game is indicative of a culture. Cricket was making a bold statement in its farthest outpost.

Mail Krishna Kumar

Postscript from Rediff: We had, last week, called for readers to send in their own contributions to Rediff. Published above, is the first of the responses. We look forward to lots more, and plan on making this a thrice-weekly feature.
Meanwhile, the sports section is, as you probably have noticed, gradually metamorphosing in look, and content. Thus far, all our changes have come at the behest of readers -- this one is no exception.

Thus, the expanded coverage is our response to requests for increasing the scope of stories being carried in this section. We await feedback -- let us know how the changes strike you and, more importantly, what precisely you would like us to focus on.