Can Anyone Hear Me? (13 page)

Eventually the Test was abandoned to an extra one-day international on what should have been the last day.

On subsequent Caribbean tours I was to grow quite fond of Georgetown, which is a unique place. The government was to change before our next visit, which seemed to open the place up. Certainly communications improved beyond all measure. The city is defended from flooding by a sea wall, built by the Dutch, and by a system of drainage canals. The buildings are mainly of wood, using the greenheart hard wood from the abundant rainforests.

Since my last visit there, Bourda has been replaced as the main cricket ground by a new stadium, built with Indian money for the 2007 World Cup, but the old wood-built ground had so much charm, particularly in its large, airy pavilion.

On that last visit, in 2004, for a one-day international, our usual hotel was full and, along with three other journalists, I was placed in a remarkable hotel on the sea wall called the Emba-Sea. The significance of the name did not strike me until I discovered that it was a former part of the Russian Embassy. This enormous compound – needed, I suppose, in the Cold War days – had been divided by a chain link fence and what had once been diplomats' apartments were now hotel rooms. It was austere but roomy and throughout our four or five days there the rain lashed down, completing the impression of the Soviet era. As I set up the small satellite dish to broadcast, directing
it over the embassy roof, I could imagine suspicious eyes watching me.

With all the rain that had fallen, the secretary of the Guyana Cricket Board assured me 36 hours before the event that there was no chance of play in the one-day international. Next morning, looking at the ground and talking to the West Indies stand-in captain, Ramnaresh Sarwan, I could only agree, and my reports reflected this situation.

Late in the afternoon I had a call from Reds Pereira about the postponement of some awards ceremony.

‘Sorry if it's a bit noisy,' he said. ‘It's the helicopter.'

‘What helicopter?' I asked.

‘They're drying the ground with it.'

‘But surely there's no chance of play?'

‘Oh, yes,' he said, ‘They'll play tomorrow.'

After my own inspection, I was hastily on the line to London to change my previous assessment of the situation.

Amazingly, after another intervention from the helicopter, they did play and gave us an exciting finish, with England winning with three balls to spare from an unpromising position.

After our Guyanese experiences on the 1990 tour, I decided that we needed to be more self-sufficient for our next separate commentary, scheduled for the final Test in Antigua. My wife was due to join me in Barbados just before that, so I arranged for her to bring the necessary extra kit. Ultimately it proved to
be an advantage for her at Gatwick, when she was asked at check-in what it was. ‘I don't know,' she said and to calm her distress at this, British Airways upgraded her to business class.

In Antigua the obstruction to our doing our own commentary was more open, involving both the Antigua Cricket Association and the Antigua Broadcasting Service. I had to get the cooperation of my colleagues in the written press to allow us to take over the front row of the press box as a commentary position, which is never a popular idea, but on this occasion they could appreciate the crisis. (They probably also hoped there might be some lively diplomatic action played out in front of them.)

Having arrived early and set up my equipment I had a visit from the vice president of the Antigua Cricket Association.

People had mentioned to me from previous tours a rather difficult individual called Victor Michael, who now appeared, in order to tell me that I would not be allowed to broadcast from anywhere inside the ground. ‘You would not allow it at Lord's,' he declared.

‘We frequently do,' I told him. ‘In fact in two months time we shall be laying on full commentary facilities there for All India Radio.' He also seemed genuinely surprised to be told that we have a substantial contract with the West Indies Cricket Board to broadcast this series.

‘I will check on that,' he said.

He was back a few minutes later to tell me that there was no contract. I told him that was rubbish, but he was now into
telling me that he didn't like us because he hadn't liked CMJ's attitude on the previous tour.

We had done the deal for the broadcasting rights – at the time the biggest rights deal we had ever done for an overseas tour – with an American executive of Trans World International (TWI), Bill Sinrich. He had made the mistake, once the deal had been done, of telling me to come to him with any problems on the tour. This seemed like one, so I sought him out.

Bill presented himself to Victor Michael, as our rather undignified meeting continued in the car park behind the pavilion.

Michael was not prepared to believe him as he had never met him, so we had to await the arrival of Steve Camacho, the secretary of the West Indies Board.

In the meantime I spoke to the Cable and Wireless operations room, who were not prepared to make the final connection to our line without the Antigua Cricket Association's permission.

So the Test Match started with CMJ on the phone in the press box and me being hauled off to yet another meeting behind the pavilion, on the fringes of which stood the local Cable and Wireless director, with a walkie-talkie.

Steve Camacho knew the local politics and I realised that his speech was to please the locals, rather than to worry me.

‘There was no agreement for your own commentary,' he said, ‘only feeds of local commentary.'

‘Not
so,' I said. ‘It was specifically mentioned and I was told it would make no difference to the contract.' TWI were able immediately to confirm that.

So, apparently grudgingly and with a further remark that we would never allow it in England, which was easy to dismiss, we were given the go-ahead.

The Cable and Wireless man muttered, ‘It's on' into his walkie-talkie and by the time I got back to the press box the line was through to London.

A few nights later, I had dinner with Steve Camacho, who was as genial as ever. I had no further contact with Mr Victor Michael, though.

It was unfortunate that this was my first encounter with Antigua. It took another couple of tours before I warmed to the place at all.

There was one other incident during that Test, when the West Indies took the field on the second morning as their captain, Viv Richards, still in T-shirt and black jeans, was in the press box remonstrating with Jim Lawton of the
Daily Express
about something he had written the previous day. Viv was fortunate that after a few balls had been bowled a shower brought the players off and he was able to lead the team out on the resumption.

Two days later, the West Indies clinched the series two-one.

A week before all this we had been in the throes of another diplomatic incident.

We had arrived in Barbados for the fourth Test, with England remarkably one-nil up, after a surprise win in Jamaica, the abandoned Guyana Test and a tense draw in Trinidad. In fortress Barbados, though, the West Indies had not lost a Test match
since the Second World War and they now flexed their muscles, declaring on the fourth evening, leaving England a theoretical 356 to win. But by the close of play, in failing light, England were 15 for three.

When the second wicket fell, I was already in the passage outside the dressing room, waiting to snatch a quick interview with Gladstone Small after his eight wickets in the match. I was aware of what seemed like a very delayed decision to give Rob Bailey out after a huge appeal and then Bailey himself came past me, muttering darkly. A helmeted Small emerged from the dressing room to go out as night watchman. I returned to the commentary box just in time to see him out too, and then to hear Michael Holding's opinion that Bailey had been given out caught down the leg side off his thigh pad.

It sounded like just an unfortunate mistake by a usually good umpire, Lloyd Barker, but I also heard that what seemed to have been a change in his decision might have been the result of a charge down the wicket, with arm twirling, by Viv Richards.

I heard further that Barker had actually handed the bowler his cap at the end of the over before he raised his finger.

In the usual shopping list of reports that we were always asked for at the close of play for different programmes, Christopher Martin-Jenkins was commissioned to do a reflective piece for next morning's Radio 4
Today
programme. He wrote this carefully. In the course of it he built up to talking about the Bailey decision by saying that both sides had cheated
each other over the business of over-rates. He went on to say that this evening a previously good umpire had been pressured into changing his decision.

What we did not consider was that, to make things easier, the World Service sports unit then based in Bush House, always had a feed of our line from the West Indies, so that they could record whatever they needed. The next morning they used the piece that had been directed at a Radio Four audience on their sports bulletin beamed back to the Caribbean, which is frequently re-broadcast by the local stations there.

Strangely, it was the rest day of the Test – after four days' play. Early in the morning I received a phone call from Reds Pereira, one of the Voice of Barbados commentary team. He suggested that I should listen to the station.

I was astonished to hear that the report that CMJ had done for the Today programme was the leading topic of the news. It seemed that it had been picked up from the World Service, used all morning and then been interpreted as an attack on a Bajan umpire, Lloyd Barker.

I listened to a phone-in being conducted by the VOB Sports Editor, Erskine King, another member of the commentary team. He seemed to be relishing stirring up what was being referred to as ‘the Martin-Jenkins affair'.

Christopher, when I saw him, was understandably very apprehensive about the whole business. We went together to the England team hotel for the rest-day press conference and he managed to get himself involved in the VOB discussion programme, which was again being chaired by
Erskine King, to explain remarks which seemed to have been totally misconstrued. By this time, though, the controversy was blazing nicely and no one was inclined to douse the flames.

The problem seemed to be that the word ‘cheat' had been used in the same piece as the reference to the umpire. The fact that it did not refer to the umpire was of no concern to those who wanted to make mischief.

As chance would have it, I was a guest that day of the Caribbean Broadcasting Union at a lunch. I had to deal with the topic of the day with as much diplomacy as I could muster.

Further radio programmes that I heard during the afternoon made me realise that for the final day of the Test it would be impossible to share commentary with a local station. Eventually, in the evening, I spoke to VOB's general manager and we agreed that we would set up our own commentary position. He promised any technical help we needed. At this point I was particularly glad that my wife had brought the extra equipment out with her.

During the day, as we described England fighting to stave off defeat – and failing to do so – there was a knock on the commentary box door. I found a large man outside with ‘BAILIFF' handwritten on a badge on his lapel. ‘Is Christopher Martin-Jenkins here?' he wanted to know.

I told him he was on the air and he stayed outside, but as I took over from Christopher, I whispered a warning. A minute or two later CMJ was served with a summons for libelling Lloyd Barker.

Over the next four years the case rumbled on with no resolution until the BBC, taking local legal advice that, however things
might appear to us, they could not hope to win such a sensitive case in Barbados, settled out of court.

On subsequent tours Barbados was always the jewel in the crown. Usually coming towards the end of the trip, the Test match there is something to look forward to. For once the jealous comments down the line from London might be justified.

Like Georgetown and Port-of-Spain, Kingston, Jamaica, is a city far from anyone's idea of a holiday venue. Close to Sabina Park, the Test ground in the capital, is Gun Court, the prison for those convicted of crimes involving firearms. The advice to visitors is not to wander the streets.

I naively thought before I went there that I would not recognise the sweet smell of ganja. That was before I walked across the small grassy hill at Sabina Park that used to be beside the press box stand, where the air was thick with the smoke from spliffs and I realised what it was I was smelling.

Indeed, on the 1998 tour, when England played the West Indies ‘A' at Chedwin Park near Spanish Town, not far from Kingston, I walked round the ground enjoying a contemplative smoke of my pipe. The trees beyond the walls of the ground, which was surrounded by cane fields, contained spectators sitting in the branches, as is something of a Caribbean custom. As I walked by, puffing away, a voice from one tree called, ‘Hey, man. Come over here an' I put something more interestin' in dat pipe.'

I hasten to say I did not accept the offer.

That 1998 visit to Jamaica was famously to be cut dramatically short. On that tour we had rented a circuit on the Sky television satellite that was sending their pictures and sound. They had room for one out-going line and so I had to run a cable from our box to the TV control room in each place and put
together another complicated arrangement for our other broadcast requirements with a slightly poorer quality line. My luggage for the tour included a hundred-metre drum of cable, which drew a cheer from my colleagues whenever it emerged on to airport baggage belts. This all made for a fairly lengthy day's rigging and negotiating before each of the Tests and one-day internationals on that tour.