Months before the World Cup, had one asked any Charlie about the World Cup pitches, a misleading ‘slow and low’ answer would have echoed. Maybe fears about the mega event being played on dead tracks that make the bowlers cringe and batsmen smirk were unfounded, especially because one didn’t consult the one Charlie who matters. He is a puny man in a soiled shirt with a few missing top buttons that exposes his protruding rib cage bones, giving a clue of a life not quite spent doing a desk job in air conditioned comfort. His booming voice and large rough palms come as a surprise as he announces ‘I am Charlie’ with a bone-shattering handshake. That’s a little different from the name on the ICC-approved I-card hanging around his neck that says ‘Charles Josephs, head groundsman, Sabina Park’. As the 63-year-old drags a long green water hose laboriously towards the practice pitch, one isn’t sure if he is aware of the rave reviews that the 22-yard he prepared got. Brian Lara called it the ‘best pitch he has played on’, Inzamam repeated the same in Urdu, while there was a collective sigh of relief around that this would finally be a fair World Cup without those mindless comical 400-type of ODIs where the joke is on the bowlers. Ask Charlie if the bowlers at this World Cup have sent him flowers as they can now expect to get carry in the initial overs and bounce till late in the innings at Sabina Park, he smiles, drops the water pipe and decides to take a small break. “They could have actually done it for a different reason, as this World Cup coincides with my 50th year at Sabina Park.” When Charlie was told last year that they wanted a five-day kind of pitch for the all-important game, he couldn’t have let down the organisers and also himself, because more than one reputation were at stake. But how did he get the magic formula? “Got a barrel full of fine sand, silt clay and spread it across the five pitches on the square,” he says keeping it simple to make it a ‘pitch-making for dummies’ kind of explanation. More simplification follows as he adds, “It is a pitch where if you bowl well you can get wickets and if you can bat well you can get runs. Patience is the key. When the pitch dries a bit, run-making becomes a bit easier.” It’s an uncomplicated explanation from the man who at age 13 used to hang around at Sabina Park and help the groundsman with the heavy roller. Three years later when Charlie was 16, he got the big bunch of keys as the man in charge was late for his job one day. It was to be a long, eventful journey for Charlie, as he goes into a flashback mode, talking about two fractures he suffered while being a goalkeeper to Jackie Hendricks, advising Vivian Richards about batting first, chatting up Fred Truman, and coming back to the present by asking “why the hell was that that big lad from Pakistan flashing his bat?” Inzamam, running out of patience and playing a loose stroke, hasn’t gone down well with Charlie. The veteran groundsman says that the years spent nursing the burning sensation in the hands, back-breaking rolling schedule and lugging heavy nets around are forgotten after a day like March 13 or like the one some months back where he was honoured for being at Sabina Park for 50 years. “Cable and Wireless gave me a mobile phone and $ 50,000. Courtney Walsh was on stage and he called me ‘the little man who has been making pitches for 50 years’,” he says. In the days to come this little man will be remembered for his big task — giving a big bounce to the World Cup in specific and one-day in general.
