LEEDS: There were telling scenes at Headingley on Thursday. Not on the field.
At a stage set up by the International Cricket Council, a band was performing. A guitar, a traditional Afghan wire instrument and a traditional Afghani drum. Not drawing attention initially, they soon had hundreds around, many of them dancing, mostly Afghanistan fans.
A little while later, there was a Caribbean brass band playing at the same place. A guitar and two percussion instruments. Some Calypso was on offer. There was hardly anybody around. Not even the handful of fans in maroon present at the ground were there.
Those in India with memories of seeing videos of West Indies folks giving the typical English fan a shock by creating a ruckus in the stands at venues in England in the eighties were in for a reality check. Fortunes of their team dwindling, they too have disappeared from the grounds. Present in the UK in thousands, they have turned their backs on cricket.
“I think it has got all to with how the team is doing. We didn’t expect this kind of a performance after the first match (victory against Pakistan). That possibly explains why you see so few of us today,” said Adrian Campbell, who is travelling from Jamaica. There were more like him, but strangely, not many from those who live in England.
Perception may lead one to think that expensive tickets was a reason why the Caribbean supporters were so few in the almost capacity crowd comprising Afghans, English and Indians. Many of those from those islands who make a living in this country are not that well to do. But that would be wrong.
A majority of the Afghanistan fans who lit up the stadium don’t come from the affluent sections either. For them too, making ends meet in a foreign land is a question of struggle. But they don’t carry this baggage of being former champions reduced to poppers. They are here to have fun, not to get reminded of how it used to be and how it has become.
“I think you would have seen more of us had this team done better. I have been following cricket since the days of Gavskaa, Beedi and Shaandra if you understand what I mean. To see our team come down to this is a reason why not many of us are here. They would have, am sure, if the team was doing better,” said an elderly man at the smoking corner.
Even as the day wore on and Afghanistan’s challenge fizzled out, there was no change. Those who took enjoying cricket to another level had fallen quiet. Maybe for the foreseeable future.