Bipin Dani
Earthquake felt at the Ireland-Zimbabwe U-19 World Cup match at the wonderful, historic Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad on Saturday was “very scary”, according to the Irish commentator Andrew Leonard.
Leonard, Nikhil Uttamchandani (Barbados) and Trinidad’s Vidya Rampal were in the commentary box when ground shook for approximately 20 seconds during the sixth over of play.
Speaking exclusively over the telephone, Leonard said, “The shaking then began whilst my co-commentator was speaking and it began to get significantly worse over the coming seconds to the point where those in the back of the box started saying rapidly “Earthquake, Earthquake”!!! At this point I didn’t know what to think or what to do and as the shaking continued so much to the point where the whole box was shaking, I simply commented “We are, I believe, having an earthquake right now.”
“I may have sounded very calm, but really I was very confused as to what was happening or what we were supposed to have been doing!! We don’t have earthquakes in Ireland where I’m from and although I travel a huge amount commenting on cricket around the world, I have never experienced an earthquake in the flesh”.
“Our producer and co-commentator in the back of the box were fairly panicked but for the players down at ground level they had barely noticed. They quickly established it was an earthquake of 5.1 on the Richter scale with the epicenter about 30 km away closer to Tobago than Trinidad. We continued on adrenaline through the first drinks break and then when we realized what we had just been through live on air, it started to sink in and I couldn’t help but laugh at what an incredibly surreal situation it was:, he added.
Post-tragic, he explains, “the messages then started flooding in on social media with comments and questions, and it provided great entertainment listening to everyone’s thoughts on the earthquake in Trinidad and Tobago. Luckily I don’t think there was any significant damage or injuries anywhere as the mind immediately raced to the Earthquake tragedies in the cricket playing nations of Nepal and New Zealand in recent years”.
