Tony Becca

AFTER FIVE weeks, give or take a day or so, it's back to the good old game - to white clothing, white sightscreens, normal tan coloured bats and a red ball. Also, to four days in the sun instead of three hours in the night, to a nice, quiet atmosphere and a sprinkling of handclaps instead of blaring music, dancing and shaking. And to comfortable little singles and sometimes elegant, copybook boundary strokes instead of cheeky singles and swings of the bat with the ball sailing into the air into the night sky, and dropping inside, between fielders, or beyond the boundary, and to empty stands instead of packed stands and a ring of spectators around the boundary.

Action in the regional Carib Beer four-day tournament, the region's top cricket contest, resumes today, and in the key match, in the feature contest, it is Jamaica versus Trinidad and Tobago at Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

Running hot

With three victories out of three matches, Jamaica are, or should be, running hot, with one victory and one rain-abandoned draw. Trinidad and Tobago are behind and in trouble, and with three matches to go for Jamaica and four for T&T, even though, with Wavell Hinds and Marlon Samuels absent for whatever reason, one is without two of their three top batsmen, and with Brian Lara injured, although one is without their best batsman, and even though the cash prize to the winners, for the combined Cup and the Challenge match, is a total of US$17,500 and not a whopping US$1 million, it should be a battle royal.

There is one other reason why this four-day clash between the two perennial arch-rivals promises to be more exciting, more keenly contested than normal, however, and it is simply because Jamaica were embarrassed a few days ago and are on a mission of revenge.

Champions of the region in the 50-over contest after defeating T&T in the final a few months ago, with only Barbados and the Leeward Islands to play in the Carib Beer Cup after this, victory over Trinidad and Tobago would all but guarantee Jamaica the Cup and, despite the small monetary reward, in normal circumstances, that would leave Jamaica and Jamaicans happy.

These circumstances are, however, not normal. Last Sunday, Jamaica met Trinidad and Tobago in the final of the Stanford 20/20 before a house full of screaming spectators, they had promised to win, not so much for the trophy but more so the US$1 million first prize, and they failed to deliver.

And not only did they fail to deliver: they were soundly and properly beaten.

With their captain, Chris Gayle, normally the opening batsman and one of the most dangerous batsmen in that position in the game, dropping himself down the order to number five in a 20-over per side contest after failing to fire during the two previous matches, they appear to have surrendered, with the team, the entire 11 men, falling for 91 runs in 16.4 overs with 3.2 still to be bowled, with Trinidad and Tobago strolling to victory with nine wickets in hand and with 10.4 overs to spare, it was embarrassing, and it matters not what captain Gayle had to say afterwards.

In reaching the final, and as unpredictable as the 20/20 version of the games is, Jamaica played only one team out of three which, even at the wildest stretch of the imagination, could have defeated them. That team was Barbados and that team, after being in trouble, came back and, fortunately for Jamaica, lost by one solitary run.

On top of that, unless money was all that mattered, even though money should not have been all that mattered, regardless of what captain Gayle said afterwards, as much as US$500,000 is, it is not as much as US$1 million, nor is the US$100,000, which went to the Jamaica Cricket Association, equal to the US$200,000 which the JCA would have received had Jamaica won the match on Sunday night.

Although Jamaica were at full strength for the Stanford 20/20 and are not at full strength for today's match, the Carib Beer Cup, if not the money, is, or should be, important to Jamaica.

Deep down, however, at the bottom of their hearts, as cricketers - all of them, as professional cricketers - almost all of them, and as Jamaicans - all of them, but for Brendan Nash and Tamar Lambert who were absent, must be gunning for revenge from the first ball today - and especially so against left-arm wrist-spinner Dave Mohammed. He, like a magician, bamboozled them, mesmerised them and then picked their pockets under lights in the glittering jewel in St John's.