BLASTING FOR RUNS

 BLASTING FOR RUNS

Harry Bissoon 

In the 50's and early 60's when I had just crossed over that threshold that led me into my teenage years, and when Bookers held sway over the land, cricket was the king of sports in my village -  Springlands, Guyana. Soccer(football), volleyball and horse racing were also popular but didn't create the same excitement and intense expectations that cricket did.


The Springlands cricket ground, controlled and managed by Bookers, as they also did with the Springlands Race Course, next to the cricket field, hummed with activity during the weekends, I was one of the waterboys when these games were played. The groundsman was Chandla under whose watchful supervision we performed, taking out water and sodas to the players, at predetermined intervals. We got to see the players up close, and even shook their hands. 


The most exciting matches were the Berbice inter-county championships, when teams from Berbice clashed for the Davson Cup trophy. The highlight of this championship was when Springlands played against Port Mourant, The pavilion was filled to capacity and overflowed unto the the fringes surrounding the ballfield. The growing fame of ROHAN KANHAI, BASIL BUTCHER and JOE SOLOMON, playing for Port Mourant, had followed them to our village. People, from near and far, came in their numbers to watch them as they excelled in their craft.


The Springlands Cricket Club also had great players, such as Karia Chanderpaul, Saranga Baichu, Sonny Moosammy, Henry Pestano, Bob Jagan, and Hector Ousley, but the batting machine, made up of Kanhai, Butcher and Solomon, was too much for my home team. These three, along with Karia, Saranga, and Moonsammy went on to play for Guyana. The trio from Port Mourant went on to play for the West Indies cricket team where they became a legend.



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