THE AL GILKES COLUMN: Hearts broken by Tridents

LAST NIGHT I would have sat in front of my TV and watched the final of the inaugural Caribbean Premier League T20 just for the entertainment value.
I was in such a state of vexation and disappointment since Friday night that it would not have mattered whether the Jamaica Tallawahs chewed up and spat out the Guyana Amazon Warriors like a rat eating paper, or vice versa.
My only pleasure would have been in seeing the likes of Chris Gale and Andre Russell “lossing” every ball for six and, conversely, the likes of Philander and Santokie  digging out toenails with expertly placed yorkers.
I do not know if it’s a rekindling of memories of my past disco days, but I would also have enjoyed watching that innovation of LED stumps and bails igniting every time somebody was clean bowled, run out or stumped.  I really like this Zing Wicket System which, according to the announcers, has a sensor in the bails that determines within 1/1000th of a second when the wicket is broken. Once that happens the bails instantaneously flash bright red LED lights and send a radio signal to the stumps, which also ignite.
Talk about what will they think of next. Maybe talking stumps that replace the third umpire and shouts Out or Not Out when a bowler screams an LBW appeal or a wicketkeeper for a stumping.
But I would have been vex-vex-vex last night because of the fact that, in my opinion, the Barbados Tridents literally dropped, not once but twice, any chances we had of beating the Tallawahs on Friday night in Trinidad. Instead we got eliminated by seven wickets with Russell and Sangakkara digging our grave and burying us in the Queen’s Park pitch with nine balls to spare.
If truth be told, after their disappointing post-Kensington Oval performances, I was convinced that the Tridents didn’t have a proverbial ghost of a chance against the Tallawahs in the semi-finals. But surprise-surprise, they managed to turn my pessimism into optimism with a respectable 148, which, in my mind, were real fighting numbers.
A match was definitely on and I got ready for what I felt would be the celebration of our team moving into last night’s finals against the Amazon Warriors and possibly beating them too to bring home the trophy and the honour.
So while the first overs were being bowled, I headed for the cupboard to pour a lil’ brandy to settle the nerves for what was a match which we had every chance to win.
Would you believe that before I could get the cork back in the brandy bottle, before I could get back in front the TV, before I could take the first sip, I heard the commentators bewailing the dropping of a simple catch. I could not believe my eyes when I watched the replay to see a simple ball that my one-year-old grandson would have caught with one hand and laughed, slide through both hands of a real broken trident as if he had just eaten some greasy fried chicken and ran out to field without washing them.
The dismissal of Chris Gayle, before he could start motoring, for three runs eased my frustration and for a while it looked like we were back on track until yet another broken trident allowed what, with proper anticipation, would have been an easy catch to bounce out of his fingers.
So there I would have been last night just enjoying disco stumps and bails.