We visited Trinidad and Tobago on a national holiday, so most of the shops and restaurants were closed. We had the good fortune, however, of hitting on a day when they were hosting an international cricket match between the local Caribbean West Indies team (wearing maroon) and South Africa (wearing green). Neither Shannon nor I never had ever attended or even watched a televised cricket match before, so it was quite a cultural experience.
If you’ve never been to a cricket match, trying to get a handle on the rules the first time feels a bit like trying to learn Whackbat:
With a little help from the people around us, we eventually got the gist of bowlers, batsman, overs, runs, and wickets and settled in to have a right jolly old time at the oval. In this particular flavor of international cricket, the games only last about 8-10 hours instead of the 3-5 days that a match play version can take…whew! We only stayed for the first half during which the West Indies team was at bat. Though WI worked hard to keep it from happening, South Africa ended up winning easily as even the locals we spoke with correctly predicted. Here are some images we captured during our time at Queen’s Oval.
This dude has a really sweet lookin' beard.
Cheerleaders in the West Indies don’t wear team colors or do planned dances out on the cricket pitch. Instead, they are sponsored by local businesses such as Carib Beer or Digicel Mobile Technology, and they wear the colors of their sponsor. The actual cheering is done in the stands and mostly consists of waving big flags with the sponsor’s logo on them and jumping around to some thumping, driving drum beats.
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