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Cup Match. When I was growing up, there was the sense that the black community went to Cup Match and the white community went sailing or abroad.

Of course those were stereotypes but I've found some evidence in support of them.

I found a box of photographs my mother took, including some of Cup Matches past.

My mom had a Brownie box camera with two-lens settings - pretty sophisticated in its day. She doesn't appear in many of her pictures - she was always the one behind the shutter. But she was always taking photos - her sisters, her girl friends and the various men hoping to snag one of them for a bride, my granny's back yard, church picnics and family outings.

But she needed more than her Brownie to capture on film what she was seeing at the Cup Matches. Most of her photos are either of others watching the match, where all you see are their backs, or of match scenes so far away that the people and their actions are indistinguishable.

What I noticed most was that in all her Cup Match photographs I have been unable to locate a single white face. It may help to remember that these were taken in the thirties, forties and fifties, during which time Bermuda was officially segregated. It shouldn't be surprising in that racial era that Cup Match, founded in celebration of black emancipation from slavery, would have been an all-black affair.

These days, the crowd seems more mixed - that's a good thing. Certainly the cause is worth bi-racial support. There's no doubt in my mind that the 1834 event of emancipation benefited whites and their succeeding generations almost as much as blacks, although in different ways.

Although it was over a century later that blacks acquired full voting rights in universal suffrage, emancipation did outlaw physical enslavement. For whites, beyond the payment some whites received for the loss of the human property, they were set free from the psychological shackles of being unjustly inhumane to darker-skinned peoples.

But I intended to be writing about cricket…

Anyone who watched Saturday's Stanford 20/20 Tournament cricket match between Guyana and Jamaica will have experienced how exciting cricket can be. I only saw part of the game.

Jamaica had scored 163 runs in their twenty overs - a credible score. Guyana was at bat and had lost two wickets. Guyanese batsman Esuan Crandon, who was at the wicket when I turned on my TV, had 'opened his shoulders' and was wailing away at the Jamaican bowlers with a series of boundaries. Guyana went on to win the match with brilliant batting, helped somewhat by shaky fielding, but the outcome was in doubt until almost the last over.

Honour the occasion

I'd like to see our Cup Match played with such dash. Lately it seems our Cup Match teams have not played to win, but rather to avoid losing. That may be the safe path but it isn't fair to the spectators, nor even to the players, who should be given the opportunity to take pride in achieving a real victory.

The pace of the 20/20 matches may be difficult to sustain for two days, but wouldn't it be thrilling to see the Cup Match team that bats first show a fiery intent to build up a formidable first-innings lead. Such a lead if successful would require their opponents to follow suit.

That would set the stage for a match worthy of celebrating emancipation, and cricket.[[In-content Ad]]

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