Trinidad / Special Interests / Cricket

Cricket is an important part of Trinidadian heritage and the Queen’s Park Oval on Tragarete Road in Port of Spain remains one of the world’s foremost venues. The olde worlde charm and its sprawling samaan trees may have disappeared in recent years but large scale refurbishment has delivered a dramatic theatre with the dreamy backdrop of the Northern Mountain range still intact from the new five storey pavilion complex. Anyone with a sporting bent would appreciate the museum here and the Bat & Ball bar is also well worth a visit. The atmosphere on big match days with up to 30,000 present has been unrivalled in the Caribbean, particularly when England are in town, with rum, noisy soca, dancing, conch blowing and wild celebration all part of the mix and though there may not be too much to shout about these days the Trini Posse stand, party central, is always good value for money

Other regional and first class cricket is staged at Guaracara Park in the south at Pointe-à-Pierre where a pungent aroma from the nearby refinery does nothing for one’s enjoyment, but elsewhere you’ll see cricket played on every parched piece of land, in the middle of the road around Blanchisseuse and other rural outposts, and often dozens of junior games simultaneously on the vast expanse of the Savannah in Port of Spain. ‘Windball’ or softball cricket is also hugely popular and played just as much by women as men. The national cricket leagues have a complex structure: the Premiership has eight clubs, the prestigious Queen’s Park, headquartered at the Oval, Wanderers, Preysal in central Trinidad, Clarke Road, Central Sports, Comets and Merry Boys who compete in two day, 50 over and 20/20 cricket; two Championship divisions contain twelve teams each in North East and South Central playing the same formats; beneath that there’s a zonal competition and a fairly active rural league too.

In the video above travel writer and cricket enthusiast, Steve Thorpe, talks to one of his chums, cricketing legend Brian Lara, about the state of West Indies cricket and then asks for a few pointers about where to go and what to see on the beautiful island of Trinidad.

A new stadium named after home grown legend Brian Lara at Tarouba has come on stream recently but the much vaunted associated Academy may take a while longer. The Queen's Park Cricket Club and Heritage Museum in Port of Spain is well worth a visit.