Sammy: From a smiling ‘loser’ to the glue that binds WI together

Sammy is hoping that his side can pull off an upset against NZ.

Beyond the runs, wickets, and catches, we watch sports for characters to emerge and personalities to develop. Boys turning into men, shyness morphing into confidence, and sometimes, the reverse slide as well, a confident man reduced to a pale shadow of his former self. In that context, it has been fascinating to see the rise and rise of Darren Sammy of the West Indies.

On the field, Chris Gayle might still be the cool dude, Jason Holder the new captain, hailed by the likes of Curtly Ambrose, but it’s Sammy who is the most spirited soul of this team. He has now acquired a sense of presence about him and that has been the transformational journey over the last couple of years.

It wasn’t like that in the recent past. In fact, it was hellish for him even back in the Caribbean. Especially back in Caribbean. A new player thrust into captaincy, a St Lucian in a board with a St Lucian president and CEO, and someone who was not given much love by the populace. Back in 2011, in stadiums across the Caribbean, he was given the stick. By virtue of being selected by the board in the times of Gayle’s stand-off, he was seen as an anti-Gayle man. Peals of laughter, a humiliating, ridiculing laugh swirled around the stadiums and chants went out against Sammy.

Sammy of old
“When I am out on the field I don’t think I hear the crowd. When I get out there, I block everything around me. I try not to take on what’s said from outside,” was Sammy’s response then.

Whenever you met him off the field, at the hotel, or at the ground, he would always smile. He would talk about how he wanted to be a priest as a kid, how his mother told him to just look internally for validation and not bother about other people’s comments. One night at Dominica, right at the end of the series, he danced at the team hotel. Jivving, shaking, laughing — a happy man at peace with himself. A thought did occur that about that moment in that open hotel bar and that night was probably going to be Sammy’s best night as a West Indies player.

It wasn’t. That came in Sri Lanka when he lifted the World T20 trophy and though these days he isn’t the captain anymore, and still smiles, there is something else that has crept in. A steely edge, a kind of confidence that can only come from success and the smiling “loser” is now hailed as the glue that holds this team together.

Sammy is the one who is now sent out to talk-up the team and respond to criticisms or send out a shot of bravado to the opposition. On Wednesday, he talked up West Indies’ chances against New Zealand on Saturday. “It’s a big match, but I remember some guy called Douglas beating Mike Tyson. It’s a case of that on Saturday. It’s been a long time (since West Indies won the World Cup), but New Zealand has not won any. The guys know what’s at stake and we’re going to do everything in our powers to beat Mike Tyson.”

More bravado came out next. “We’ve played New Zealand in the quarter-finals of the World Twenty20 and when it came down to crunch time, we won. Same set of players. This time around it won’t be any different. It will be a full house rooting for New Zealand, but we know that within our group, once we do the basics well, we are unstoppable. We’ve been very inconsistent, that’s a fact. But it’s a knockout game and if we put all the good things that we know we can do right, no team will beat us. And I know the other teams know that as well.”

Piece of mind
A short while earlier, Sammy indulged in some banter with Holder in the batting nets. In the last game, they had a bit of a tiff — Sammy giving his piece of mind to Holder who had taken him off after just an over and the young captain had stood his ground. “That’s a single to the man at 45 (degrees), that’s two past the man at 60,” Sammy called out to Holder, who bowled some offspin to him, after tapping the ball to fine-leg region. “That’s a single only to you,” pat came the reply from Holder. “Come on, ma’an. Forty-five, easily single! That’s what I told ya! I keep tellin ya, every time!” Holder waved his hand, and Sammy went. “Just bowl, don’t talk, just bowl.”

At the presser, Sammy himself nailed the difference in his character in the last few years. He was talking about the tiff with Holder in the previous game and it caught the difference well. “Perhaps, it’s kind of surprising because it involved me, people don’t see me behave that way, but it was just that I wasn’t happy with the decision.” Sammy of 2011 wouldn’t have dreamt of doing something like this.

“There’s no animosity between Jason and I. Jason and I go way back, we’re like brothers. I was one of the first guys to come out and give my support, made sure the dressing room rallied behind Jason. There’s nothing to write about.” Actually, there is lot to write about Sammy.

Source:: Indian Express