Don’t worry. I’m not about to change my hairstyle drastically and head for the sun, but I could hardly think of a better title for this editorial. It’s about cricket, so you may well wonder what dreadlocks have to do with anything. The title is a song by 10cc that dates back over forty years, to 1978, and has distinctly reggae overtones (hence the dreadlocks). Among the subjects that the singer first claims not to like, before confessing that he LOVES them, are reggae, Jamaica and… cricket!
That this sport is included with reggae and Jamaica is testament to its popularity throughout the Caribbean. Fifteen individual nations unify to compete as the “West Indies” team in international cricket. The sport is popular across the Commonwealth, from the Caribbean to Oceania via India, Pakistan and the place where it all started: England.
I attended a traditional grammar school in that green and pleasant land and my Wednesday afternoons were taken up by playing rugby in shorts in the freezing cold winter and cricket in long trousers, long-sleeved shirt and woollen sweater at the height of what passes for summer in the United Kingdom. It was the typical character-building stuff and I absolutely loathed it. Thanks to rugby (and a certain amount of medical incompetence), I spent nearly two weeks walking around with a broken wrist when I was about 15 years old – imagine that! After surviving an interminable winter of shoulder charges and tackles, I could then look forward to having a ball made of solid wood hurled at me in the summer, with just a wooden bat and some foam leg pads to protect me.
Different strokes for different folks
This week will see the start of the ICC Cricket World Cup in England, which will run until 14th July and which millions of people will happily spend an entire day watching the action, whether they are sitting in the stadium or glued to their TV screens at home. And where there is a captive audience like that, there is a market. Unsurprisingly, the first watch brand to tap into this potential is Hublot, which has already earned itself a reputation as an early disrupter in other sports.
“Hublot is once again First, Unique and Different by being the first watch brand to invest in cricket,” Ricardo Guadalupe, the brand’s CEO, explained to WorldTempus “It is a game of skill that is played with passion and brings together millions of fans around the world. This legendary sport thus allows us to complete our global presence and supports our development in countries where there is a lot of potential. I am looking forward to this fantastic partnership at the World Cup and I am very proud that Hublot is a partner of the ICC.”
Let’s hope that the fickle English weather plays along, since cricket is one of the few sports where both rain and low light can stop play.
