Just lukewarm

Cricket isn't quite tickling Port-of-Spain like it used to. Today, day one of the second Test of a series that has been widely billed as the battle between the two best batsmen in the world, has been greeted with no more than a sixty-five percent response. Gone are the thumping rhythms that bounced about Bourda. It's a busy little town, Port-of-Spain, full of little lanes and traffic jams, and where businesses and industries thrive more than in any other part of the Caribbean. Unlike in Georgetown, time is at an utter premium. Maybe Queen's Park Oval will find its feet as the weekend swings by.

Actually, we were warned. Ian Bishop, a local, had mentioned that upon reaching Port-of-Spain, you wouldn't feel too much cricket in the air. "Just get there, you'll know." At the Queen's Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain's answer to London's Hyde Park, dozens of boys in their late teens and early twenties spend the evening playing sport, while the middle-aged walk or jog around the perimeter. It's almost all football. Often you will see teenagers heading for somewhere with a basketball in their hand.

The club that Phil Simmons and Bishop himself represented, Crompton, is no longer in existence, nor are several others. Earlier, there used to be a health rivalry among them. How refreshing then, to see a schoolboy match in whites beneath the clock-tower at the Queen's Royal College, an institution that has bred Jeffrey Stollmeyer, Jerry Gomez, Inshan Ali and Deryck Murray.

What is happening, as in India, is that cricket is spreading and really blossoming outside the cities. Most of Trinidad's new cricketing talent comes from the central region, dominated mostly by East Indians. A fair crowd turns up for club and district games. Wanderers and Preysal are two clubs in the heart of the sugar belt separated by a highway and their rivalry can get fierce and passionate. With a team comprising of three-quarters East Indians, Trinidad have been winning the West Indies under-15 tournament for three years now.

No, cricket in Trinidad, even Port-of-Spain, is not dying. It just has to content itself to be third to football and basketball as a participation sport, and second to football as a spectator sport. They too will feel the cricket mood. Let the weekend arrive, let the sun be tempered by a breeze, let Lara bat. The party will come to town.

Rahul Bhattacharya is a staff writer with Wisden.com India. His reports will appear here throughout the Test series. Exclusive from Wisden.com/Indian View Watch Current action from West Indies NOW!