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BAT’S AMAZING:

How a blind Caribbean team are bowling over the crowds.

BY THE time she was 13 years old, glaucoma had robbed Juliana Alexander of her eyesight. But the St. Lucia native refused to let blindness cheat her of life.

Juliana speedily learned her way around her hometown. And years later, she added another skill to her growing repertoire – cricketer.

As a member of a cricket team that played in Birmingham last week, the 33-year-old mum of one dispelled any doubts that blind cricket is a male reserve.

“Disability is not inability. It is just skin deep. I can do anything I put my mind to,” she told The Voice.

Juliana’s journey began in 2005 when she joined the St. Lucia team after being encouraged by friends.

“I never liked the game but they kept telling me I need to join because it is fun. I went, I loved the game and I stayed,” she said.

Soon, Juliana was batting full-time in matches, and was one of 15 people on the West Indies Blind Cricket team that travelled to Birmingham last week for an international three-day series against England’s blind team.

“You are always sleeping, eating cricket. It’s like you can’t do without it. I get into the game and I want to see my team win,” she said.

Juliana added that she never feels awkward as a blind person because she is always moving around as a cricketer, mum, wife, masseuse and secretary of St. Lucia’s national council for people with disabilities.

But people ask her how she can be a cricketer. “They will ask how blind people can play cricket and I’ll explain how it is played,” said Juliana.

Anthony Cummings, a blind fast bowler from Barbados, outlines the skills that players need.

“Blind cricket is not an easy game to be played by a blind or visually impaired person. You must be fit. You must have a good sense of direction,” Anthony said.

“You must have good hearing; you must have good balance and you must be able to average the sound of the ball.”

Anthony has played in several regional games and at the 2006 Blind Cricket World cup in Pakistan.

“Everything is about averaging on the field. If you are a fielder and the batsman hits the ball and the ball comes in your direction, you must average where that ball stops,” he said.

“From the time the ball stops, it doesn’t make a noise so you must average the distance from where you heard the sound of the ball and average your fielding to find the ball.”

Friends and relatives think nothing of how easily he gets around, but strangers ask him how he does it.

“I am not frightened. I’m very determined,” Anthony said. “My brain must always be on at all times so I know where I am going and where I came from.

“I was teaching myself, where blindness was concerned, from the time I was 13, so cricket came like nothing to me. You must be brave because as a B1 (totally blind) player, you must dive into the ground to stop the ball.

“For you to dive into the ground, you must be brave. If you don’t do it the right way, you could disable yourself further. In addition, when the wind is high, you can hardly hear the ball so you make judgements,” Anthony said.

“Sometimes you misjudge, but I don’t mind. You just take the risk and do what you have to do.”

Taking risks is nothing new to Anthony, who began going blind at age 13 from a condition referred to in Barbados as ‘night blindness’.

He said he had good fun driving a car and riding a bicycle after losing 50 per cent of his sight. By age 30 his sight was gone. “And I still climb coconut trees,” the 41-year-old father of two said with a chuckle.

As if shimmying up 40 foot trees while blind is not dizzying enough, Anthony, a former house husband, said: “I work at the centre for the blind in Barbados. I make mops and I work with two sharp knives and pliers.

“It is not easy because the slightest mistake you make could cut your fingers off. I can clean and wash - I do everything. And yes, I am a good landscaper,” he added.

Both Anthony and Juliana dismiss sceptics who think blind people cannot do activities such as playing cricket.

“I tell them just come and watch the game and they will see what we can do. For me and other players, when we go out there and we play blind cricket, we feel good about ourselves and we feel very independent.

“We will show the world that even though we are blind, we can still do something,” Anthony said.

Published: 11 August 2008
Issue: 1333

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