For Cricket. At Providence in Guyana

We left Georgetown at 03.30 am in an ordinary car packed full of people and camping equipment. Four Rastafarians and a long-haired cricket scorer made for an unlikely quintet of bird watchers as Ali drove past the districts of Prospect, New Hope and Providence, places named long before the discovery of oil, but full of residents ever hopeful of redemption in an unforgiving environment. After nearly two hours we came to the town of Linden, a place so safe, claimed Ali, that you could walk down the street in the middle of the night wearing gold chains and nobody would bother you. We found the turning for Rock Stone Village and the tar road disappeared. It took a further two hours to safely negotiate the ruts in the road created by trucks, endless numbers of them, involved in illegal activities.

Most of the logging is probably done with some sort of blessing from the government, but it’s the movement of thousands of tonnes of gravel on a regular basis that destroys the road. The granite supplies come from the far side of the Essequibo River, turned to crushed stone by imported labourers according to the locals and transported across the mighty river in barges owned and controlled by Chinese interests. The trucks that subsequently carry the gravel to Linden and Georgetown primarily for export have no number plates and are identified by replacement tags that have names like “Jumbo Jet 1”. The activity that the government allegedly benefits from has completely transformed the eco-tourism destination of Rock Stone Village. The birds are mostly still there as well as the fish in the rivers and estuaries, but the state of the roads keeps most potential visitors away.

Close-up oh Cuvier’s dwarf caiman, the smallest species of crocodile family. It is peeking out of the water next to the rock. In the background is another one.

CAYENNE, FRANCE – MARCH 17: Animal in Guiana zoo, Guyana, Cayenne, France on March 17 2018 in Cayenne, France. (Photo by Fred Marie/Art in All of Us/Corbis via Getty Images)

Toucans, Parrots, Kingfishers and Hummingbirds were seen in abundance as well as three species of capuchin monkey. Sleeping in a hammock was a new experience, but waking to the sounds of the forest was short-lived as the trucks started arriving at 6 am having only stopped the previous evening just before 10 pm. We found more birds after breakfast including Trogons, Honeycreepers, Tanagers, Oropendolas, Caciques, some Black Caracaras, a Pompadour Cotinga, a White Bellbird and finally the exquisitely named Screaming Piha. It took even longer to navigate our way back to the world of tarmacadam than expected and the traffic near the Demerara Bridge as you approach Georgetown was truly horrendous. Every time I return to a place to try to watch a Test Match after a gap of 10,15 years or more, the first thing I must write about is the traffic. The roads are always the same as before, there are just thousands of additional trucks and cars crammed into an unsustainable nightmare resulting in an almost permanent roadblock, whether in Dhaka, Kolkata or many other places beyond.

Getting to and from the Millenium Manor Hotel to the Test Match in the district of Providence will be a challenge as unfortunately it is located on the far side of the Demerara Bridge congestion. Travelling to the ground will be easy as most cars will be travelling in towards Georgetown at that time of the day. Getting a vehicle to come out to collect me after the close of play is going to be the problem. Grabbing a lift from someone else in the ground would work if the city was safe to walk around in after dark. Door to door transportation is a necessity and will provide an interesting challenge as will the search for vegetarian food. I have been spoiled for the last two days, treated to the delights of perfectly prepared “ital” Rastafarian vegetarian food on a little camping stove in the rain forest. How ironic that I will have difficulty getting the food I want in a major city.

The first Test ended as a draw with rain interrupting play on most of the days. The forecast is for less rain this week and the chances of the Series ending in a victory for one of the teams look good. Both sides are likely to change their bowling attacks with the Windies looking to bring back the local boy Shamar Joseph to play on his home ground and the visitors considering leaving out the extra batter Ryan Rickelton and starting with Nandre Burger or Dane Piedt instead. Shamar Joseph was only 11 years old when the last Test was played at the Providence Stadium against Pakistan in May 2011 when the West Indies won by 40 runs. In a low scoring game with the highest score 52, the bowlers dominated. Saeed Ajmal had match figures of 11 111 and Daren Sammy was the hero in the end with 5 – 29 in the fourth innings.

The only other Test played in Providence was in March 2008 when the Sri Lankans beat the West Indies by 121 runs. A total of 1311 runs were scored in the match, the highest aggregate of runs in a single Test between the West Indies and Sri Lanka. Warnapura and Mahela Jayawardene scored first innings centuries and Chaminda Vaas returned match figures of 8–109. Murali had identical figures of 3–112 in both the West Indies’ innings. There have been other Tests scheduled to take place at Providence and I have travelled to Guyana in anticipation of watching on two previous occasions, but both were moved to one of the Caribbean Islands at the last minute for unspecified reasons. The most recent of these was in 2014.