By Precious Mills
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Thursday 12th September 2024)- Following the St. Kitts-Nevis Patriots’ fifth consecutive defeat on home soil at Warner Park on Sunday 8th September 2024, losing by two wickets to Antigua and Barbuda Falcons, this media house interacted with fans and sports enthusiasts from various walks of life, quizzing them about their enjoyment of the matches and their impressions of the Patriots’ performance.
Here is what they had to say: Ronald Persaud and his nine-year-old daughterAriana
Ronald-In St. Kitts, I think Patriots performed terrible. I don’t believe they go to the plans that they had in mind. Maybe Fletcher, the captain, had some plans but nobody acknowledged it the way the it supposed to go. But St.
Kitts-Nevis will definitely win on the road. I hope they have to win the next five games they have, and I believe they’ll win the next five games and enter the preliminary round and get to the final. So these are the preliminary rounds, I hope they step up their game.
Today was a tough game. They shot like 20 runs but that’s cricket. Cricket is up and down. You never know. Ariana-St. Kitts [and Nevis] always lose on their home ground. I don’t know why. Like why? Like all other matches, when it’s not like in the home ground, they win but when it comes here, they’re not winning.
They have to win on their home ground because this is their home ground. Teshari Liburd (standing right) Well-known entrepreneur
Well, it’s been a wonderful five days liming. The limings been good; it’s been good to be out. I mean, being in action to think it’s always a plus but Patriots
themselves have been disappointing. I mean, I don’t know a lot about the game but I believe that the guy, Mikyle Louis, the local guy,he’s on home soil and he proved himself from since day one. I believe he should have been moved up in the batting order.
We had persons like Fletcher and Rutherford coming in and outing for one, two, not and then they continuously kept bringing them up to fourth and kept bringing Louis fifth. I don’t like that. That should not have been. We needed to win at least one game on the home soil.
I don’t like that we did not. Jason Ian Barrett (Member of the St. KittsNevis Association of Persons with Disabilities)
Well, first of all, I’m glad that the tickets have been donated to me so I don’t have to worry about paying for them. I work at McKnight Community Centre for the association for the disabled. The CPL people donate the tickets to us every year.
So I thank them for the tickets they donated to us. When I was at the job earlier this week, I got two tickets for Sunday…but my neighbour said he had to go work today. So I came with the tickets and I gave somebody one and I take the other one.
So it was nice. The game was nice. Well, they perform in a kind of way but when they catch the ball, they keep dropping the ball at it; they were right under the ball and they keep dropping the ball and that’s what makes me mad.
So I can imagine that if I had bet money, I would have lost. In some games they catch the ball and some games they drop the ball. Troy Liburd(Minister of Education and YouthNevis Island Administration)
I’m one who is a lover of cricket, playing a little bit of cricket myself as a youth and so it’s always a good opportunity for the people of the Federation to come out together to enjoy some good cricket. I am a little bit disappointed that our home team did not win any games here at home, but hopefully going forward
through the tournament we’ll see them get some victories. Besides that, I enjoyed the atmosphere very much. Of course I’d say overall the games were very, very nice games, competitive games. Even though we didn’t come out the winners of games, they were still very competitive.
So I enjoyed myself. I know that a lot of other persons had that opportunity to enjoy themselves. Quite a lot of us from Nevis came over every night and today and so that’s always a good thing when we have that interaction between the people of the Federation so I look forward to more CPL and more cricket in general.
Awesome. I actually enjoyed watching Mikyle Louis play and I think he has a bright future. Louis is somebody who following cricket I’ve seen him play a lot of cricket in Nevis with highlights in Nevis he plays a lot of cricket there and so I have seen him play over the years and I’ve known that he has that talent he now has the opportunity to showcase that talent for the entire world and I think he has done well with the opportunities that he has gotten he made a 50 earlier in the week and he made 60 something today so I think he has a really bright future and I’m looking forward to seeing him go from strength to strength.” Lillian Richardson (Best Dress U$500 winner during the matches played)
Well, not because they lost all the games but to me I had a wonderful time. I enjoy myself and …to me, they’ve done a good job. They might lose, but if you look at it, they get wickets and they make runs. Because they make up to 200 and something, so to me, that’s great runs.
But where they are lacking, I don’t really know but all I say, better luck next time and I have faith in them. Maybe they can’t win in St. Kitts but they can win overseas; you never know. We had a wonderful time. It was great, for true.
Lots of fun, meeting people. The party atmosphere was just wonderful. Everything was good. You (fans) don’t just come out here to say really they (Patriots) must win but you make sure you come and you show your support. Most of the people, like, they will just sit down and they will say nothing.
Well, I will bang my mouth 24-7. Then only if they make a six, they get out by the opposition, then they would make a noise but to me, they (fans) need to come and make some noise. And something what I think they should do too, make some t-shirts of your country fellow men, like of Mikyle Louis and the other athletes from the Caribbean.
They can make some t-shirts of them, their own persons and put them along with the CPL t-shirt, and sell them in – PUBLIC INTEREST – 13
the country. So for instance, you come out and come back with a Mikyle Louis shirt; full up the stadium with Mikyle Louis shirts. Then they go to the next country, maybe Antigua, Antigua person, they got on all Antigua shirts.
Joseph ‘De Awesome Navigator’ Bergan (Well-known Calypsonian)
Well, from what I’ve seen and from what I’ve heard, I think the Patriots made a good effort. And in anything you do, sometimes you’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some. But I trust and hope that when they play their other legs outside, I trust that they will be even more successful than they were at home.
So that is just my two pence towards the whole thing.
Photo: Lillian Richardson see in an outfit which landed her U$500 for Best Dress during the matches played at Warner Park in St. Kitts (Photo courtesy Lillian Richardson)
