I’ve had the game of my life

AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Dinanath Ramnarine and cricket has given me everything in my life! My life
is cricket.

Everybody calls me Dinas. When I sign something to a friend, I put “Dinas.”

I’m originally from and spent most of my formative years in Charlieville, Chaguanas. Over the last 15 years I’ve lived there, I’ve adopted Cascade. And Cascade has more or less adopted me.

But I think people still relate me to Charlieville, where my cricket club, Comets, is based. I’m the club president.

Prior to getting married, my wife was my best friend for seven years. She’s been my harshest critic. But also my biggest fan.

We’re married 21 years.

My respect for women started when I lost my father when he was 51, and I was six years old, the last of ten children, five sisters.

My mother had to be a strong person to raise us after my father died. To raise me alone was trouble! I wasn’t easy.

Every day should be International Woman’s Day. I find them to be the strongest species in nature.

I didn’t really know my father that well…But I know he loved cricket! He was the scorer for Comets for 30 years – the most beautiful handwriting – this cursive kind of way was appreciated in those days.

I come from a very humble background. We had to plant in the garden and reap crop and sell to go to school. Each one who was older had to sell to try to send the next one to school. It was very difficult.

But people helped, like the late Abass Ali. That family, Kamal Ali who still runs Alescon. They almost adopted me as a son, in a sense. They were the father figures I didn’t have.

Schooldays with cricket were good because you actually got lunch! So it was tough. But it gives you that (drive).

I come from a Hindu family, but my wife and children are Anglican. I have family who are Muslim.

I have a deep faith in a supreme being and I love all religion. All teach positive values.

I started school at Charlieville Presbyterian then Chaguanas Junior Secondary and then Presentation College in form four.

I didn’t go to university because I was so focused on cricket, also a way of putting food on the table. I was very fortunate to make the Trinidad team as an 18-year-old.

I got to play on the Charlieville Presbyterian school team because of my older brothers, who were all very good. People say my brother Jairam is better than me and they’re right.

I used to open the batting and wicket-keep but my mother banned me from cricket because Common Entrance was coming up.

One day, I saw a teacher taking some of the school team players in a van with an open tray in the back. So I jumped on the vehicle!

The teacher told me the game was for the best players to try for the county team and I would have to wait. I felt really, really small.

But I took a ball and end up in the nets, bowling. There were over 50 students from all over County Caroni trying out, they don’t know who is who.

A man asked me what I bowled so I said, “Spin.” So I went to try to bowl spin for the first time. And when they saw me bowl leg-spin, a group of grownup people started to gather around me. “Come see this guy!” The teacher who took me had never seen me bowl. He didn’t know I could bowl. I didn’t know I could bowl!

So many people gathered around me, talking, I started to wonder if I was going to get in trouble.

They saying, “Can you bowl this or that kind of ball?" And I started to get people out. And batsmen started looking foolish.

As a young primary schoolboy, somebody spinning the ball. I was the only one of the seven who went on the back of the pickup tray who got selected.

I made the Trinidad U-19 national team when I just turned 15 and played for four years.

Presentation College picked me to go to the Garfield Sobers schools tournament in Barbados.

But we had to raise $300 to go, so I told them I got sick from flying.

The day the team was supposed to go, the coach told my teacher he would pick me up and my teacher told him, “Dinnas not going ‘cause he don’t like to travel.”

When they came to my house, I told them I didn’t have a passport. Or $300.

And the village, my community, that same day, raised the $300. And a villager who worked with the Ministry of National Security took me to get an emergency travel certificate.

My loyalty and love for Charlieville, I would never forget what they did for me.

My mother told me, “Don’t ever take a
cent for playing cricket for Comets!” So I never did.

I will never forget my debut for West Indies at home at the Oval in Trinidad.

I walked out and the open Carib Stand and the Trini Posse was there. I can still picture it now.

The Trini Posse were really connected to me. They made you feel like a champion. Trinbagonians have even exceptional to me, everywhere I go. That carries me all now.

I was the first non-captain president of the West Indies Players Association.

The players were very disenchanted. The board had invested the players provident fund, their retirement money, and lost it.

I didn’t have a clue what WIPA was doing. I didn’t know anything about the structure of West Indies cricket. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I had never run an organisation. I was still playing cricket.

One of my first meetings, we asked for 25 per cent of what the board was getting from the International Cricket Council, consistent with what other international teams were getting. I sat with Wes Hall, the president, and I’m saying we need 25 per cent, otherwise we’re not going on tour.

And I can’t even justify why we need it. It was embarrassing. They started to talk this legalese I couldn’t understand.

The meeting ended in a stalemate. I went to my hotel room at three in the morning in tears. I had embarrassed myself. What would the guys think about me?

I drew that 25 per cent line because that’s what the players wanted, but I didn’t know the agreements in place, had no idea about meeting procedure, nothing, nothing, nothing.

At six in the morning, I hadn’t slept. And then I got a call from the CEO saying they agreed to give us the 25 per cent.

Lord have mercy! If the talks had call off, I wouldn’t have another step to take!

After that first meeting, I told my wife I couldn’t do the job. She said, “You could give up. Or you could educate yourself, understand your role.”

So I got cricket agreements from Australia, New Zealand, England, everywhere. I got major league baseball and NFL contracts and started to read up how these models work. I learned everything I could.

We went to about 15 arbitrations and won all!

We fought for things like player insurance. I got injured in South Africa and went to New York to do rotator cuff surgery.

I sat in the hospital waiting room from 7 am. The board didn’t pay for the surgery until 2 pm.

I was under general anaesthetic and the hospital told me I had to leave at 7 pm, because the board didn’t pay for me to stay the night.

My hand is in a sling. I don’t know where the hotel is. I’m dazed by the anaesthetic.

A Guyanese guy found out I was in hospital and he and his wife checked me out of the hotel and I stayed by them. They bathed me, feed me, take care of me.

I have seen so many players go through similar things.

I don’t drink and I’ve never smoked. For my wedding, I had Apple J, the champagne of soft drinks. That’s a mother’s influence.

The defamation case (in which he was awarded almost $1 million), you could respond, but then it becomes a tit for a tat. I was attacked unprovoked.

The best you could do is go through the court process, rather than respond or take matters into your own hands.

This was a painful, painful period of my life.

But I feel vindicated and I hope other people view this and start to rethink and recommit to serving TT.

To me, Trinidadians are smart, witty, really loving people. They could make a joke out of anything. The person just said it in Parliament, and within seconds, there’s a meme on social media.

Trinidad and Tobago: I love, love, love this country more than anything else. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many different countries. And I can tell you there’s nothing to touch our culture and our people.

Lara is a great batsman who has demonstrated to the world what we can do. But there are many Laras in every field.

Read the full version of this feature on Friday evening at www.BCPires.com