The opening day of Cricket Canada’s latest opportunity to market the game of cricket, rather than sell it down the creek… The day brought in a reasonable smattering of spectators, who massively outnumbered the available seating before the previously advised start time of 11 am. It was quite a hot day, although it can get a lot hotter and more humid. But the early signs indicated that for the general public it was a designated fasting day. Indeed, it seemed set as a solemn fasting day with silence for the people about what was going on, and the customary Cricket Canada approach, inherited rather from the predecessor Canadian Cricket Association in the recent era, of a lack of welcome signs at the entrance gate in King City. Still, the lack of trappings did bring together cricketing enthusiasts from a range of countries who made the most of the day, or the part of the day during which they stayed. There were a few more trappings as the day’s events eventually unfolded, some of which provided additional entertainment, much of the slapdash variety.
The Mayor of the Township of King appeared on the scene and helped provide some opening ceremonials for the T20 tournament, dubbed as part of the “Etihad Summer Cricket Festival” or perhaps the T20 event is that festival. At least there were some advertising signs for “Etihad”, which there had not been in the parts of the four-day game. Those “Etihad” signs, and some for other sponsors and causes, were shifted around, and some fell down with regularity as a stiff breeze blew. Then someone “invented” large width sticky tape, and the signs then began to remain in place for longer periods.
I must admit I probably used :”Ethihad” and not “Etihad” with some large size photos sent to a few contacts. But I might not have done. A more significant personal issue was my small laptop’s battery had depleted and there was no power available to allow distribution of photos between innings during the opening game between Trinidad and Tobago, and Afghanistan. Nobody invented a power supply and power connections to various parts of the ground by the end of the Afghanistan innings, nor by the end of the opening game. Having cooked for several hours in the sun, and with other games due on other days, I took off for a place with reliable facilities as a base for sending out a few photos.
It was an entertaining opening game, which had some significant swings and roundabouts. Both sides lost some early wickets. Afghanistan seemed to be in trouble at 47 for four wickets, but a captain’s innings turned the tide. A hat-trick of batsmen bowled by Sherwin Ganga ended the Afghanistan innings with one ball to spare.
The turning point may have been a catch at long-on that failed to dismiss Afghani captain Nawroz Mangal in the 12th over. The fielder acknowledged he had put his foot on the boundary rope in taking the catch. So instead of being 57 for five wickets, the score advanced to 63 for four wickets.
Trinidad and Tobago’s batsmen subsequently found the Afghani fielders an almost irresistible, if not, magnetic attraction, to the disappointment of their fans assembled at the ground. Afghanistan supporters were happy to see their team win and it was, excluding the lack of management skills demonstrated by Cricket Canada at the ground, a day on which people came together. Adversity has often brought people together in history, and people from the different communities were drawn together in sharing information about basic information, such as who were the players on each team batting, bowling or fielding.
Potentially the best news of the day is that the current President of Cricket Canada has decided this year will be his last. Another local league official seemed to have turned TV commentator, and may be better suited to that role than in a management role. Although it was a bit of a half-baked looking TV setup, but supplies of power around the ground may have restricted whatever coverage was being provided to cameras around one end of the ground. But, who knows? And, as far as I am concerned, some of the leaders certainly do not care. But lots of other people do care.
While the toss was waiting to take place, I said hello to one of the players and made a comment about mental preparation for the game in the context of a seemingly changing start time and one or two other possible issues in delaying the start of the game. But, you can learn from adversity. Buddhist belief notes the suffering of an individual through life on this earth. At some point it might be nice if some of the earthly reasons why so many people suffer were addressed and we had a better world.
The Mayor of the Township of King provided this event with a ceremonial start. The two teams lined up before the game and he went down the lines, giving best wishes to the players, team officials and match officials. Mayor Steve Pellegrini then bowled a ceremonial first ball. There were smiles.
During the game, it was good to see a young person explaining the game to the one York Region Police officer. There was peace and happiness on the Afghan front at the end of the game. The folks from “Coconuts” eventually were able to provide some food and drink, after construction activities had taken place.
In a way, two parts of the core Canadian Constitutional requirements of “peace, order and good government” were met in this cricketing context, as the day progressed, despite the obvious lack of pre-planned order and good government. St. James Cathedral in Toronto has one entrance that has a memorial stone to someone killed in the line of military duty in the Khyber Pass area in the 1840’s. One of the routes into “the subcontinent” from the direction of Europe, Russia and the Middle East or Near East.
On the way back from Thursday’s game, I passed St Mary’s Anglican Church on Yonge in Richmond Hill, where there is a plaque for a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan in 2006, if memory serves me correctly. But none of us get everything right. We cannot predict the future. I certainly would not have opted to take an option to update my e-mail to a “new and better version” if I had known there would be a T20 tournament and a two-day game between Canada and the USA to follow the 4day and ODI games between Canada and Afghanistan.
There are memorial stones and inscription plates all over the Greater Toronto Area for people of a whole range of races, colours and religions who have died on the same side, as well as on different sides in various wars, especially the Great War – the War to End All Wars, wasn’t it? – and the Second World War.
Last night, I did not have time to send copies of photos to a publication source, where there is a preference for reduced size internet version. Nor did I have time to check a couple of other contacts in Trinidad and Tobago, or send something to The Afghan Post, a monthly newspaper in the Toronto area. So, by my own standards, I failed.
But if I failed, and I pay my own way as a “loss-leader” in trying to promote cricket in Canada, and my travels have seen me help the game in some other places, it is certainly difficult for me to accept that the scene at the ground around 10.30 am yesterday represented an improvement for Canadian cricket. It was a re-presentation of something toward the better end of what has been done in the past in Canadian cricket. A better-end that is far from adequate.
The ordinary people at the ground do not count as the leaders sit or drift around in a dream world. Unless someone takes a proper grip on planning and management in Canadian cricket, the game might lose it’s way. Some of Canada’s promising prospects have noticed that “the best” by Canadian cricket presentation standards is not very good, to use diplomatic language.
You have to have a sense of humour to try and help the cricketing cause, as you must in various aspects of modern life. I forget (and, for once cannot be bothered to check at 6am or so on Friday morning) who wrote the words for the song “Smile though your heart is aching”. But the music was written by someone called Charles Chaplin.
The same Mr. Chaplin who is more famous as the silent movie star, Charlie Chaplin. He ran foul of the era of the “Reds under the Beds” in the USA.
Elsewhere yesterday, ‘Captain’ Cook struck a big century in a bid to overcome the mysteries of “the East” without visiting the Pacific Ocean. One of his partners for England against India was the Irish “Captain” Morgan. Captain Morgan used to plunder the West Indies in his piracy. It was not the India of the first test at Lord’s in 1932. “All India” as some, I believe, described it. It was not the All India of Ghandi, the man of peace, whose wish was to see the peoples of India living together in peace, regardless of their religious heritage.
There was a modest flourish of the bat from Nawroz Mangal to acknowledge his fifty on Thursday. In a T20 game, his focus was to get on with the game and score more runs. He ran himself out in the end. Shades of the epic, “Into the valley of death rode the gallant….”.. …cannons to the left, right and, I believe, those cannons were up the hills or mountains.
Some less than stellar decision making and communications saw the Light Brigade ride and charge into the valley of death. Perhaps, today, it will be once more unto the breach, dear friends for cricket at the Maple Leaf grounds in King City, Ontario. But who knows? The 2011 Canadian Wakeboarding/Water Skiing Championships are going on in King City as well.