It was the day of the final between Trinidad and Tobago and New South Wales.

I had some business in Port of Spain including getting a haircut.

My children laugh when I say this because they believe that nature has already got rid of most of my hair and what is left hardly merits the expenditure.

From a full head of hair to only a few thin remnants, nature has indeed left me stranded.

So too did the mall to which I went in search of a further depletion of my hirsute resources.

Located west of Port of Spain, it has several widescreen television sets.

At game time, the sets were all tuned to the Food Channel.

That was food for anger as much as thought.

I was told that the mall’s owner had ordered that the TVs be turned off.

He was incensed, it was said, by the crowds that had showed up in the Food Court to watch the cricket.

It seemed that he was angry because they were not buying anything and were there just to eyeball the event.

Insisting that his mall was not a sports bar, he used his prerogative as the owner to stop the cricket from being shown during the semi-final and final.

Some people approached me complaining about not being able to watch the game.

Others were also very disappointed.

My concern is not with the particular individual.

While people suggested it was his ancestry, his ignorance of the meaning of cricket to people in Trinidad, and his inability to comprehend the historical significance of the match, I pointed out that the man’s race, region, religion and immigration status had no bearing on the situation. 

What worried me is the extent to which the man’s mindset reflects the attitudes and behaviours of other business magnates and private sector honchos.

I know that there are still the General Bullmooses and some politicians who believe that what is good for them is good for the country or the Caribbean.

I know that any action against the mall, like a boycott, would only affect the tenants and not an owner who seems to have the ego and financial wherewithal to get his own way regardless.

I always thought that if people are in your store it is more likely they will buy something than if they are outside the store. Someone suggested to me that the mall owner was upset that his security guards were so engrossed in the cricket that they were not doing their jobs.

However, I see that as a supervision issue and not sufficient reason to deprive everyone in the mall, shoppers and idlers alike, of the cricket.

I was lucky to be allowed by the owner of the hair-cuttery to stay longer than the twinkling of the eye that it took them to cut my hair, the few nanoseconds actually much longer than what was left of my locks.

As I sat watching the game I thought of an old Arabian story.

A boy was standing in front of the fried fish stall in a bazaar noisily sniffing the savoury scent.

The owner got angry and demanded payment from the youngster for sniffing his fish.

The boy jangled the few coins in his pocket and said, ’For sniffing your fish, I am paying you by allowing you to hear the sound of my money.’

Maybe that is what we anxious cricket fans should have done.