The Real Hicksville

NYPD Security makes the eyes water

    Graeme Smith once described Hamilton in New Zealand as a ‘hillbilly town’ which caused some consternation amongst the locals. A similar term for a similar sort of town used to be ‘Hicksville’ but, in America at least, I can confirm there is nothing disparaging about it.

    In fact, Hicksville happens to be right next door to my new home in East Meadow as I discovered when walking to attend South Africa’s training session, four kilometres away from the location I was given. But nobody’s complaining about a 10-kilometre stroll when I did 24 in downtown New York on my first day. Sorry, ‘uptown’ New York.

Hicksville doesn’t have tumbleweed on the turnpike but it does have plenty of small container storage units and several workshops specialising in restoring big classic cars, two American obsessions I learned about while watching old TV series on tour in various parts of the world. Turns out they were all true.

The venue for training was Cantiague Park, a vast expanse of football fields (both sorts), tennis and basketball courts, running tracks and even an indoor ice-rink for year-round hockey. There are children’s play-grounds, a small water-park with slides, dog-walking areas and even an 18-hole golf course. There could hardly be a better reason for families to live in Hicksville. It’s huge.

And the entire place, including the golf course, has been shut down for the duration of the T20 World Cup’s time on Long Island. Two policemen approached while I was still 50 metres from the main entrance, one with his right hand hovering disturbingly close to his weapon. Fair enough, there was a large sign declaring ‘Park Closed’. I thought twice about reaching into my rucksack for my accreditation and called out, in peace, ‘I’m a cricket journalist, can I show you?’

    There were pairs of policemen on every corner as Officer Bob, now very friendly, escorted me to the small corner of Cantiague Park where South Africa were training. That small corner of the estate already looked pretty secure. If all the other officers on duty had just patrolled in and around the nets area, the good people of Hicksville might have been able to play golf, walk their dogs and exercise their children and not hate what this unknown sport had done to their routine. But what do I know about security.

    Another peculiarity of the session was South Africa’s reluctance to make use of the dozen or so net bowlers provided by Long Island United Cricket Club, all dressed proudly in their red and black club kit. They were disappointed. Bowling to the South African team at a World Cup would have been something to tell the grandkids.

But the brand-new, drop-in pitches were a bit too spicy to risk an injury so SA’s quick men bowled in empty net under the supervision of bowling coach Eric Simons while head coach, Rob Walter, gave throw-downs to the batsmen who wanted to range-hit. There was also the odd sight of a fully padded-up Heinrich Klaasen throwing balls to Tristan Stubbs.

Tomorrow’s game against Sri Lanka starts at 10:30am. Apart from the fact that the entire tournament has been structured around maximising revenue from the Indian TV audience, there’s something not quite right about playing this format at that time of day. With apologies to non-drinkers for whom the analogy may be offensive, it’s like having a beer at 10:30 in the morning. You could do it, but you wouldn’t choose to.

    Anybody from New York City planning to drive to the game will have to leave around 6:30am, such is the traffic. Parking and negotiating the police cordons and security checks will take another hour. And then you’re done by 2:00pm. It is a weird, bewildering tournament. Guyana, Dallas, Barbados and New York – Florida and Trinidad. Match times varying by 10 hours. India the only team guaranteed a semi-final venue, if they qualify.

    Of course the sporting integrity of the tournament is fundamentally undermined but at least revenue maximisation is on track.