It’s tough to keep a straight face as a giant hoarding over a cell phone kiosk greets one at the Piarco international airport. Top West Indian cricketers are in splits as they pour over a text message that Chris Gayle has just received. Despite the initial edginess of being in an alien land and a six-plus overwhelming presence at the counter, one couldn’t help but ask while casually looking at the poster, “No Samuels here.”

The answer comes as a surprise. “He had an early shift. He’s gone to the beach, you too go, great for tourists at this hour,” he says as the controversial cricketer gets confused for an ordinary man who spends his after-work hours next to the sea. One wonders if Marlon Samuels’ Nagpur phone bills have been posted to the Caribbean yet, or the assumption about the local disinterest for current cricketers is nothing but a premature generalisation based on insufficient data.

But a bit more of gawking and a sample survey of the newspapers show that the USP of this World Cup isn’t about the famous West Indian brand of cricket, but all about the beaches, nightlife, fine dining, music festivals, rain forests and active volcano. When they do actually talk about cricket, it turns out to be the atmosphere beyond boundary — the Trini posse band, metal drums and those iconic fans like the cross dressing Gravy and Disco Chickie who bring the roof down at tastefully done stands.

Ask about the invisible cricketer on the World Cup bandwagon and a former West Indian star and local organiser now says, “The World Cup has come to us a quarter of a century late, I think. In case it was the 70s or 80s we would have cricketers all over the place and we would have talked cricket till you turn deaf. But for Brian Lara there isn’t much to talk about in West Indian cricket for some time now.”

... contd.