FOLLOWING?IS?an interview between The NATION’s Senior Reporter Ezra Stuart and Barbados cricket captain Kirk Edwards at the end of the Regional 4-Day Championship final between Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago at Kensington Oval last Saturday.
The West Indies Cricket Board’s senior communications officer Adriel “Woody” Richard and visiting Trinidadian journalist Vinod Ramcham were also in attendance but neither asked Edwards any questions.
STUART: First of all, congratulations on a good victory here against Trinidad and Tobago and winning the title. How does it feel for Barbados’ cricket in general since it is six years now we have tasted success like this?
EDWARDS: Obviously, it feels great. I would like to know how you guys feel, but we feel good because we have been working hard and we have been getting a lot of stick, so at the end of the day, it is always good to come out with a positive result.
STUART: You keep harping that you guys have been getting a lot of stick but does something like that affect you in any way because you keep mentioning it all the time? Are there some negative vibes coming out from some areas?
EDWARDS: I think you guys should give us more stick because if you give us stick, we tend to win a championship, so that’s brilliant.
STUART: What factors do you think would’ve been responsible overall for your success this year?
EDWARDS: For our success, it is just playing together. It is a good team effort. Like I said, when one guy does not come good, the other guy tends to put up his hand and come good, so we play as a unit and we tend to work together.
Every day cannot be my day; every day cannot be another guy’s day. Whoever [has a good day], we tend to celebrate that for that guy.
STUART: Was there anything special this Barbados team did in comparison with other years, maybe in the last six years when we weren’t successful in winning this championship?
EDWARDS: We stayed together and stayed away from the media.
STUART: Why is it a problem with the media? The media do their job, the cricketers do their job. It has been going on like that for donkey years, before my time, before another guy’s time but do you have a problem with the media writing or commenting on Barbados’ cricket?
EDWARDS: No. I probably have a problem with the media when they are misleading the people, but if they are going to write the true facts about the game then, I love the media.
STUART: I won’t want to harp on that but going back and looking at Barbados’ overall performances, do you think that we have some players now that can challenge even further and probably get some Barbadians into the West Indies team? You yourself and Kraigg will be looking to be recalled to the West Indies team. Do you think that you have done well enough that you could probably look at the bigger picture?
EDWARDS: You tell me as the statistician. You are the guy who would probably be viewing the facts more than me, so you would decide that.
