“Limacol Caribbean Premier league was the bomb! Now what?”

Aug 25, 2013 Sports

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Colin E. H. Croft
So, we have come to the final in the inaugural final of Limacol Caribbean Premier League.
This is a fitting climax, as the most consistent teams, overall, in the competition, have come to the top, ably led by West Indies stalwarts Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle.
Without even considering their team-mates, this is full redemption for Sarwan, discarded by West Indies after Champions Trophy 2013, Pollard for his initial unacceptance in his adopted team in Barbados, and for Gayle, whose very importance still does not seem to register with some.

However, now that we have tasted from this wonderful chalice of cricket – T-20 version – what else is there to look forward to, to replace this dazzling excitement that we have experienced?
Yes, the initial Limacol Caribbean Premier League has been truly, stunningly brilliant; for colour, for intensity, for enjoyment and pure unadulterated fun, and even for, generally, players’ magnificent efforts.
So, even if you were dead, you should all thoroughly have enjoyed the event over the last six weeks!
But, everything; good and bad; must eventually come to an end, whenever that end arrives.
After the last several weeks of an event that has, most definitely, capsulated what the entire Caribbean has been known to be about, carnival atmosphere everywhere, relatively careless and carefree existences, consummation of all things human, and those man-made too, total titillation, what happens next?
Oh, of course life will go on, as it inevitably would and does, but the entire Caribbean façade will be sorely missing a relatively new form of ultra-entertainment, a fanciful facet that has never been seen, in this heightened guise, in these celebrated parts.
I know that we have had the then eye-opening, even enjoyable too, Stanford T-20 Series from 2006 to 2008, as staged and financed by now disgraced financier R Allen Stanford.
But those events were restricted to being played out in only one country, Antigua & Barbuda, with no “outside” international cricketers involved at all, initially, except in the final of “Super Series”; 2008; when the Stanford Superstars took on England in the “20-20 for 20 million dollars!”
Limacol Caribbean Premier League has been a vastly improved and timely updated venture of the T-20 event itself, one that is, hopefully, unlike Stanford’s, which died with his incarceration, here to stay!
So, what exactly will follow this now, as regards cricket entertainment and absolute full adrenaline rush?
Adrenaline is a strange phenomenon, an actual real element of living, described in bio-chemistry as “a hormone that is secreted by the adrenal medulla, in response to stress, and increases the heart rate, pulse rate, and blood pressure, and raises the blood levels of glucose and lipids.”

In other words, under severe external stimuli, one could actually feel, even act and perform, like Superman, if you have correct amounts of adrenaline coming forth, for whatever reasons.
Have you ever been chased by a big, bad dog, or someone acting similarly to that dog, perhaps with machete in hand?  Somehow, feet fly, not unlike that super guy, to take you to safety, most times!
That is the effect of adrenaline, but, conversely, there is no way to turn it off, as one does with running water from some pipe.
That is why so many sports-persons, generally, and folks actively involved in extreme sports, like sky-divers, even Formula 1 drivers and fighter airplane pilots, live so fast, some even dying quite young.
Sometimes, there is great inability to harness, curtail, that extremely rush; that absolute, euphoric high!
Super cricket and superb displays of everything Caribbean are what we have had.
Now, the let-down will be quite cruel!
I did not fully understand “adrenaline rush” until I was 26 years old, 1979/80, probably the prime of my actual and cricketing life.
Strangely, I was not even fully aware of the phenomenon when I first played, aged 23, for West Indies in 1977.  That could have been put down to simply taking things for granted as an enterprising youth-man.
I had first toured Australia at the end of 1978 in another similarly ground breaking cricket-entertainment situation, in Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, featuring West Indies, Australia and Rest of the World.
But it was when West Indies toured Australia, 1979/1980, that I really became fully aware of real effects of adrenaline, for, among other things, this was the first tour ever by West Indies to Australia that the hosts had lost to us tourists.  That in itself brought out all sorts of emotions.
After captain Clive Lloyd had set Australia over 600 to win Test No. 3, at Adelaide, we set about getting them out, which we; Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and yours truly; duly did early on Day 5.
Try as I did, I could not turn off the euphoria, so my son, Lee, who will be 33 next October, became reality!
LPCL 2013 has left us with severe headaches and cravings for very much more, of anything!
More likely than not, most of us will have to use the main sponsor’s product to cool our hot heads.  Enjoy!

Pic –

– Fans enjoy the CPL action. (CPL)

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