Liam Herringshaw reports on the progress of cricket in Newfoundland
Back in St John’s, and a cover drive further down the street from Fred’s, is a pub that advertises itself as “a taste of Old England”. That alone would pencil it in as the venue for our post-match pints, but when it came to officially establishing the Cricket Association of Newfoundland & Labrador, the pub’s name nailed it. Where else could we inaugurate but at The Duke of Duckworth? So a couple of weeks ago, at a long table on the back patio, around 8.30 in the evening, four Bangladeshis, two Indians, two Englishmen, and an Irishman signed the association into existence. The landlord was very entertained to learn this, especially when we told him about the upcoming launch night. Under floodlights at the King George V football stadium, the Newfoundland B’ys will take on the Labrador Ducks. Like cricket over here, Labrador ducks have long been assumed extinct, whilst “b’y” is a buddy in local dialect, but also alludes to the Hindi word bhai, used by many of our players. The pitch is a curious shape for a cricket match, and the artificial surface appears (from initial testing) to offer a surprising amount of turn and bounce for the spinners, so it should be a splendidly off-kilter way to reintroduce the game to Newfoundland. We also have our first-ever selection problem, with 29 players vying for spots on the teams, and will undoubtedly need security to control the enormous crowd expected.
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