One of the things on a tour which has intrigued and irritated me for over two decades with cricket teams in third world or subcontinental countries has been the habit of the host countries to provide high profile, sirens-blazing police (or even army) convoys for teams to travel between hotels and playing venues. Practise days as well as match days.
It’s easy to justify on security grounds in some countries but there is also a gratuitous element to them with motorbike outriders taking a perverse pleasure in driving cars virtually off the road in order to get the team bus through traffic.
For the first day in Trinidad with the Zimbabwe team there wasn’t a police vehicle in sight. But by the second they were with us in all their glory. Unless we missed some news about potential terror threats or other hostile possibilities, it would appear that the police convoy is simply for ease of passage through Port of Spain’s heavily congested streets.
On the way to practise this morning the policeman in the passenger seat in the car ahead took exception to a driver who hadn’t moved over far enough and took an angry swipe at his wing mirror. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from treatment was that we were somehow ‘better’ than all the other hot and bothered commuters in the morning rush-hour traffic. I wasn’t the only one on the bus struggling to come to terms with the notion…!
Lunch time was positively embarrassing as the convoy pulled into a shopping centre on the way back to the hotel in order for the players to buy ‘Subway’ sandwiches. For a desperate, fleeting moment it occurred to me that the police might escort the squad to the front of the queue, too, but they turned the lights and sirens off and waited patiently in their cars before bulldozing us back to base.
The squad seems happy and content although staying in a wonderful five star hotel such as the Hyatt Regency is a bit like window-shopping in the centre of Paris. Apart from breakfast, which is stunning and complimentary, we can’t afford anything else!
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