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Cricket
Players |
Copyright 2004-2006 Zina Saunders All rights reserved |
Ashook, age 34, was a professional cricketer
for six years in Trinidad, for the Caroni Wanderers, until an injury
hurt more than his back. Now he plays with amateurs on the Trinidad
& Tobago team in the scruffy parks of Brooklyn and Queens.In the Caribbean, cricket is a way of life. Back home, we have coconut trees, so we got little coconut bats; you know, sometimes you’re not so privileged to have a proper bat, so you have to cut the leaves and make a bat out of it. Or any old piece of wood we’d get, we shaped it into a bat. As soon as we could hold a bat, we just start playing. So, I started when I was two or three. I used to go and look at my bigger brothers play, but the thing was, they never encouraged me around the park; they kind of kept me away from the grounds, because they didn’t want me to have the influence of the drugs and stuff like that. But they were older, and could handle themselves. When I was about 20, I was helping my friend with his business, and he was playing for a little village team. One day I was just sitting in the office, enjoying myself, and he told me to come out and play. He, being my friend, as well as my boss, I had to oblige, and I went out and I started to play. And after one season in the sunshine, I thought, “Why should I play for these minor leagues, in these little crazy grounds, when I can go and be in the same sunshine and make good money in the professional leagues?” The reasons I moved to New York … well, of course I like living here and I want to be part of New York, blah, blah, blah, but from a cricketer’s point of view, I got this slight injury in my back. And while you’re on top of your game, people treat you with the utmost respect. But the minute you start to fall a little bit, and you’re injured or something like that, then all the people start thinking of you differently. I’m fairly sensitive, and I realized there’s nothing more to go to if you’re not going to the International Level, you know? So I decided to come here. |