We are on the verge of the start of the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. This exciting cricket event is scheduled to be co-hosted by the West Indies and the United States from June 1 to June 29, 20241.
But, did you know that Canada and the West Indies have a history that goes back a long time? The CCI Co-Chair Sir Hilary Beckles has written a book on the First West Indies Cricket Tour that took them to Canada and the United States in 1886.
The following is from a review in The Sunday Gleaner, March 4, 2007 Tym Glaser summarizes things… (note the lunch they were served!)
THE CRICKET world, as we now know it, is just about a week away from celebrating its greatest festival in the Caribbean.For a month and a half, the people of England and its former empire will be caught in the rapture known as the Cricket World Cup as 16 teams chase the game’s greatest prize at the world’s third biggest sporting event.However, while fans from far-flung places such as Australia, South Africa and India and cast their eyes to our part of the world, our closest former colonial neighbours under the yolk of Britain – the United States and Canada – will barely raise an eyebrow. [Editors note: today we are about a week away from another cricket celebration…but I bet more than eyebrow will be raised in the United States and Canada. See below]
Cricket “up there” nowadays is little more than a quaint expatriate pursuit well hidden in the giant shadow of baseball. It wasn’t always that way, as Professor Hilary Beckles reveals in ‘The First West Indies Tour – Canada and the United States in 1886’.
TEAM’S EXPERIENCES
The book is based on the “Memory” of the team’s experiences and written by “One of Them”, Jamaican captain Laurence Fyfe, which was published by Argosy Press in Guyana in 1887.It is complemented by scoreboards of each of the 13 matches played and local press reports of the “gentlemen cricketers from the British West Indian islands”. The tour came at a pivotal time for the sport in this part of the world.
However, with the Caribbean struggling economically, Beckles explains the North American venture was more than just play for the 14 “travellers” drawn from the cricket fraternities of Jamaica, Barbados and Guyana.“For the post-slavery Caribbean it was the first giant step into Western modernity, an intensely competitive imperial world quickly learning how to turn its back upon small places which were once of greater value than continental spaces” Beckles writes.
And the players of the first West Indian team were “economic members of the inward-looking, decaying sugar world, (who) chose to break with the past and swim against the tide”.
Their trip took them to two countries also undergoing great change with Canada coming to terms with its Anglo/Franco identity and the United States licking its Civil War wounds.
The West Indians weren’t the first foreigners to play against North American teams as sides from England, with the iconic W.G. Grace, and Australia, featuring legendary batsman Charles Bannerman – who made cricket’s first Test century, had already been there. The visitors from the Caribbean were not regarded with anywhere near the awe of those stalwarts of the game but they were treated royally on their way to a fairly impressive record of six wins, five losses and two draws against teams playing a game in slow decline.
STRUGGLE
They handled the Canadian sides well, but struggled in the United States and particularly against the teams based around Philadelphia – which is still an outpost of the game in North America today.
Fyfe, in his ‘Memory’, lauds the hospitality received and goes into great detail about meals including an early feast in Montreal which comprised Soup – Green turtle. Consomme Royal. Fish – Boiled chicken halibut; cram sauce. Pommes Parisienne. White fish; Hollandaise sauce; cucumbers. Releves – Roast beef. Spring duck; apple jelly. Vegetables – Cauliflower. Green peas. Vegetable marrows. Tomatoes. Entrees – Filet of beef larded with mushrooms, Spring chicken. Saute Marengo. Soft shell crabs. Maitre d’Hotel. Sorbet Windsor. Broiled squabs. Lettuce salad. Dessert – Glace Napolitaine. Ice cream. Champagne jelly. Gateau Juisse. Fruits. Coffee.
All washed down with fine wines and liberal amounts of song; our World Cup guests should dine so well!
However, for the most part, Fyfe’s writings is dry and gives Beckles little to work with. Reading between the lines, it would seem the first West Indian cricket tourists were much like the ones of today, who play hard and then enjoy the associated benefits of wine, song and women – in no particular order; but it’s up to the reader to make that leap because we are not introduced to the players in any great detail.
What requires no imagination is the fact that exactly 100 years on from that near month-long first tour, the West Indies dominated world cricket and the US and Canada were all but historical side notes of the game.
Source: The Sunday Gleaner, March 4, 2007
As for the current day, we are all getting ready for the T20 World Cup. The tournament features 20 teams competing across 55 games, all vying for the prestigious title of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 champions. The matches will be exclusively played in the United States of America, with the West Indies as the co-hosts.
Canada is in what many would call the “Group of Death” and plays
– US on June 1st
– Ireland on June 7
– Pakistan on June 11
– India on June 15
West Indies is up against some good competition and plays
– Papua New Guinea on June 2
– Uganda on June 8
– New Zealand on June 12
– Afghanistan on June 17
While it is probably a long shot that Canada and West Indies will meet again as in 1886…let’s hope they do. And let’s have a look at what a menu from today looks like for cricketers!
Wikipedia has a good summary of the T20 tournament format and some good links to teams etc. for those looking for more information.