Where I come from, what I have seen, you give thanks for money and you give thanks for fame. Because they get you through – out of one life and into another, and when you’ve lived the experiences I have, there is no romance in staying where you were, no misty eyes and no false memories of how it used to be.
But it comes at price. A man who was once open must become a closed book. A boy who trusted all around him must now keep his mind and emotions under lock and key.
No one is out there for love. People will come around you for what they can gain or what they can get from you. Maybe things are different for you. I hope so. Personally, I can maybe count the loyal people on one hand. One hand. And not even five fingers. That’s how it is.
They say more money more problem, and that is true. So, so true. If you come from where I from, you’ll take those problems over your old ones. But you have to work out how you’re going to deal with them, for they can chew a man up and leave him with nowhere to turn and no faith in nobody. You see something happen again and again, and you know what to expect.
And I know what life is all about and what life is like. I travel the world, and I know what to expect.
I’ve heard the prettiest talk. I’ve heard the sucker talk. You come to learn when somebody is trying to get something out of you. Mi bin tru it all.
In response I show no emotion or expression to let them feel any better. When they finish their talk I say, ‘Okay, I’ll get back to you.’ I’ll get back to you on that. Because so many of these talkers are just bull-shitters, and I can read that now, I can see it in eyes and hear it on lips.
It’s always been like that. You live and you learn. I’ve seen players who have been through a lot. Who have had bad men do bad things to them, and so have appointed agents, and had agents screw them over. I’m glad I came at the right time to see those things, because I can use them as a guideline, and I can use them as experience when the same things happen to me.
Because I have been let down. I’ve been let down by family members. You ask them to do certain things, and they just go and do the total opposite. Within the family I’ve been let down for sure.
It hurts you at the time, and it hurts you for a while afterwards. How do you not get more suspicious of everyone else when that happens?
The first time I hear the name Allen Stanford, I hear only good.
A big man from Texas. A billionaire come to play in the Caribbean, but a billionaire come to play cricket, to give the game in the West Indies the love and resources it has been starved of for too long.
Antigua is his base, and Antigua becomes his pliant empire. A bank, a mansion. A private jet, a private cricket ground.
And then a private cricket tournament. The Stanford 20/20, because where Sir Allen is, his name has to be everywhere, even as the ‘Sir’ in front of it is another one of those strange mysteries and exaggerations that follow him around like his butlers and security guards.
Teams from across the Caribbean, cash from another world. There is excitement and there is opportunity, not only to earn money that has never shown its face elsewhere, but to let your style in the new booming format be shown around the planet.
With the private jet and the private yacht comes the image of a very very heavy man, and then follows the whispers of something bigger: a tournament between the best from the islands and the best from elsewhere. Talks come around, and now England are at the table. Whispers become leaks become concrete. A black helicopter lands on the Nursery Ground at Lord’s, inside it a suitcase with enough cash to buy the old pavilion and turn it into the Stanford condo tower.
England against Stanford, one T20 match. US$20 million to the winners, a see-you-later to the losers.
Dis serious? Dis really happening?
When you see the selectors lined up for the Stanford All-Stars you put all doubt to one side. Sir Viv Richards, Sir Everton Weekes, Curtly Ambrose, Lance Gibbs, Richie Richardson, Andy Roberts and Courtney Walsh. When you look at your form in T20 you know you will be in, and when the captaincy is raised and it comes down to you and Sylvester Joseph, you know you will be nominated, because if you are looking to build a team from scratch then I am the senior man and I have that respect.
Coaches are appointed, Eldine Baptiste and Roger Harper, and a training camp is called. And it is one of the most intense camps I’ve ever been in, putting in serious work, putting in total focus. We’re under strict rules and we’re under curfews, and we are perfectly happy with that because of the prize on offer. A lot of practice game, a lot of preparation, day in, day out.
And then shit starts happening.
We are all in Antigua, on Stanford’s ground, staying on Stanford turf. Long days training in the sun, long evenings for people to talk.
I am the team’s leader. I am the spokesman. And the liaison Stanford puts in place, the person every request or question or report must go through, is Andrea Stoelker, his fiancée.
Like him, she’s an American relocated to the Caribbean. Unlike him, she is young and a nice person.
Whatever you need, you have to go through her. The players always want this and that, and when they do, I’m the one to go down to the office. I have one-on-one meetings with her. I have discussions with her. We need this. We need less of that. What time do you want us here, and can we get that over there?
And the speculation start to float around. Antigua is a small place. People talk an’ circulating.
My birthday comes round, and I ask her if I can break camp to go back to Jamaica and celebrate it. No go, but as we are having a team dinner at the hotel, she brings a cake to the table for me.
We all celebrate and enjoy it, but now some people feel I’m getting special treatment. Words start flying around, flying around, flying around.
More whispers. Chris man, there’s photos going round of you and her talking. ‘What do you mean? Dis rubbish. Bullshit.’
She’s still a good lady to deal with, so on we carry. Maybe she likes me, I don’t know. But nothing is happening, just as nothing happening means everyone assumes everything.
On an’ on, and the shit keeps happening. I keep getting feedback. Rumours from all around – Stanford is not happy, stay out of Stanford’s way. She now has his security men with her every second of the day, so even if we wanted to be alone, we couldn’t be, and even if we wanted to go somewhere, we’re not allowed to leave the compound.
I say to her, when we meet, let’s do it outdoors. Still the stories come, still the big talk. And it reach a serious stage now where meetings start to happen and calls start to happen.
Stanford starts badgering the legends. Stanford starts pushing at captain Gayle. And then the first phone call.
‘Chris. There’s a problem. My fiancé thinks we’re having an affair.’
‘Whaaat? You serious?’
She tells me he has taken her passport away to check if she has been to Jamaica to see me. Why would she want to go to Jamaica when I was in the camp? None of it making sense, none of it making any difference.
‘This is serious. He’s really pissed off with you. There are some harsh things going on.’
So I say, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll keep my cool and everyting.’
But it gets worse. The media start getting involved, asking questions about him and his girl. He laughs and tells them it’s Texan horseshit, that it’s nothing. But I know from what the legends are saying that he is blowing fumes. Blowin’ fumes!
He summons the legends. I want Gayle off the team. And the legends say to him, you can’t do that now. It’s built up way too far to change the captain now. If Chris goes we go.
So he has to suck it up. He still has to put on a smart face and a smiley face, but inside he’s bubbling and burning.
There is a practice match going on, and the players are sitting in the pavilion. All of them know what’s going on, because the talk is of nothing else. I’m sitting there with Runako Morton, and out of some blue my phone rings. Unknown number. I don’t answer unknown numbers. But I start wondering, and I look at Morton, and he looks at me, and eyebrows are up.
I keep watching the game. As I’m sitting there I feel something tap me on the shoulder. I turn around.
Big Stanford standing over me. Big Stanford standing over me, blowing fumes.
‘Chris, can I have a word with you, please?’
‘Okay . . .’
We get up to walk. The players know what is happening, so they get up too. Runako walks behind us. If anything’s going to happen, he’s got my back. We’re walking along the boundary, and then he steers us into the car park. I’m wearing my dark glasses. And then it comes.
‘Are you having an affair with my missus?’
‘What? Are you serious?’
Tek off mi shades an’ look him straight inna eye. ‘Lissen to me. I’m the captain of the team. I have to deal with her on issues and matters.’
‘Bullshit. Don’t burn your bridges.’
‘What bridges? There’s no bridge to burn.’
He’s huffing and puffing, blowing heavily. A pink steam train, struggling up a hill.
‘Watch your back.’
‘Whaaat?’
‘Watch your back.’ Huffin an’ puffin.
‘Relax yourself man. Relax. Chill.’
He strides away, all steam and elbows. Morton’s on my shoulder. We walk. I’m pissed off, so we walk on. I let it go. Just breathe. Breathe. Get out in the air and breathe.
A day or two on. We’re playing another practice game, and I’m batting in the middle. By the pool area overlooking the ground, where everyone can see, where I can’t miss it, lackeys come in and set up a table for dinner. When the tablecloth is on and the silver cutlery out, he strides in, his fiancée behind him, sits down, and stares at me. The two of them, right there, on the boundary, his arm locked down on her shoulder, his eyes never leaving me.
She comes over to me in a flush and a rush after the game is finished and the dinner packed away and Big Stanford elsewhere. ‘Boy! It’s because of you that happened . . .’
Now nonsense upon nonsense. A man trying to get back at me for someone who isn’t mine. A man sitting out there with someone who’s not my woman, trying to make me rage for something I haven’t done and don’t care about.
There can be no trust now, only suspicion. I talk about the threats to our wicketkeeper, Ridley Jacobs, a native of Antigua. I’m made to understand that I can’t even go to the police station. I call my lawyer back home in Jamaica to make an official record of it all, for who knows what an enraged king can call on in his realm?
Game time now. My girlfriend is here now too. She’s hearing the rumours. She arrives in time to see Stanford getting some of the England players’ girlfriends to sit on his knee, a man playing God, a man trying to show the world he can do what he wants, a man who is dirty and old.
Proper proper chaos. Amidst it all, the team has somehow prepared properly. Of course $20m makes a difference. Maybe some of the England players think it is going to be a walk in the park; maybe they think they can afford to lose this one, for Stanford has promised that four more of the same will follow. After all, what have the West Indies done in years and years?
We have been together a long time, and our togetherness has been sealed under Stanford pressure. Before we walk out, sat in the pavilion that he has built on the ground he owns, I look around the room.
‘Lissen, nothing is guaranteed. There are no promises. So we need to be the ones to win this first game, for who knows what will happen when the dust settles from this?’
You have never seen a team more motivated.
Jerome Taylor, my beautiful strike bowler. Today there are no tell-tale trigger movements, no self-doubt. Only express pace, and the sight of Ian Bell’s leg stump going all over, and Matt Prior’s bent back the same way two balls later.
Now Darren Sammy to the party, Owais Shah going to the sort of slick steepling catch that only happens if you’ve been training flat-out for five weeks, and now the big cherry on the cake, Kevin Pietersen, stepping away to off and looking back with mouth open as another leg stump goes with a clunk and a clatter.
Freddie Flintoff, bowled by Kieron Pollard’s slower one, Collingwood, slog-sweeping down deep midwicket’s throat.
99 all out, not a six between them, and the serious fun stuff is still to start.
I pick up my bat, pull on my helmet and stroll to the middle with Andre Fletcher. Looking back I can see the intensity in the stands. I can see the expectant faces of our players in the dressing-room. And I can see Stanford, in the middle of it all, looking pink.
My head is fuming. I’m serious angry. Time to give it licks.
15 off the first two overs. 49 off the first five.
More licks, proper licks. Steve Harmison’s third over goes for 22.
We know this wicket. We understand these conditions. We’ve been playing this scenario for weeks.
My 50 up off 33 balls. Flintoff taking punishment, Stuart Broad taking punishment, Graeme Swann taking punishment.
With 10 overs gone we are only 17 away. Another look into the pavilion, another sight of the pink steam train with his boiler ready to burst.
A six off Freddie over midwicket to finish it off, a millionaire’s shot for a billionaire’s pleasure.
The guys run onto the field. I walk straight over to the pavilion, stare at Stanford, and I hug my girl.
A 10-wicket win with 44 balls to spare. A 65 off 58 balls for me. I’m not in the mood to celebrate, even when Stanford has to put on his smart face and smiley face and hand me a giant cardboard cheque for $20m, and when the cameras are on and I’m called to the stage has to pretend to high-five me and hug me in his sweaty black polo shirt and chino slacks pulled somewhere up to his nipples.
Ridley takes me aside. The best thing to do is to leave Antigua. Immediately. I’m on the first flight.
Who could take any chances? He’s a fool. But he has so much money he can do anything on that island. Money mek di worl’ go round, yuh know? You can take nothing for granted. You are safe only when you are gone.
I did get my money, not from that photo-friendly giant cheque but wired without bells and bother into my bank account. Eleven players with $1m each, the rest of it, $9m, split up between the reserve players and the support staff.
Months later, when the unravelling began, and the true stories emerged, we looked at ourselves again. Should we have known what was happening? He was a bad man, but he was a good actor, and those who did not instantly fall for him were blinded by the money. His power and his empire protected him. It would take the Feds to dig him out, not a bunch of cricketers with their eyes on a different prize.
Only a dirty man and a nasty man does what he did. It’s really sad to know we were playing with someone else’s money, and it’s worse that so many lost so much, suckered in by him to bank and invest. Even our own Superstars fell foul, many of the team leaving their funds with him and losing more than they could bear when the kingdom toppled.
I spent some of mine on my house, high in the hills above Kingston’s heat. Money takes you out of one life and into another. I spent another big chunk on heart surgery for my brother Andrew. More money more problems, but you take these ones over the old.
I don’t have the black bat or the silver stump from that November night, but I’ve kept the black shirt as a reminder. Stanford? He’s in jail in Florida, wearing orange overalls. He should suffer. And he is suffering.
So now I keep something back. I keep a part of myself locked away for only me, even as the world wants to take more and more.
I fly the skies, I travel the continents. I’m away from the few I am close to while surrounded by thousands who believe they know everything of me.
I don’t like to say no. In an airport or hotel lobby, even if I’m late, I don’t like to say no when they coming running over for a photo or a sign. Twenty cameras in your face, pushing and shoving, elbows and smartphones hitting you in the chest. You try to smile and stand your ground, everyone pushing you pushing you, up in your face, up in your face, and still you take the time to give everyone their chance. At the cricket ground, the rest of the players all gone, showered gone, showered drive home gone, and I will still be on the field signing autographs, just to give everybody the chance.
I see people dropping phones through trembling, unable to remember how their cameras work through excitement. That’s weird to experience, because you’re just being you, and the only way to keep that part of me locked safe away is to let the madness flow, let it flow around me.
You slow down time. You make it your time, not theirs. You might argue and push back, but what will you get out of it? I’m not going to let the chaos invade me. Just breathe. Just keep the walls steady. Walk away from it inside.
People in business like to talk about trust. There is no trust in business, only business.
That’s how things happen. People try to screw you. I’ve invested in businesses, and they want your name and they want you to put the money in. I’m not going to trust people like that.
I invested in one sports bar in Kingston from scratch. It didn’t work out, and I had to go to court to get back my money. Business, not trust.
In India there are deals everywhere. It comes with the game. Everywhere you walk come proposals and ventures and sure things.
I’m good with people. I can read them, and I can play my poker face. But I have to put up barriers. I’ll let them speak to somebody else, because I’m tired of hearing these things. If we’re serious about going into it, then you come up front and we take it from there. But I have to keep something back. If you come to me directly, I’ll give you a number or an email. And that’s it.
Most people out there want to take you for a ride, yet sometime your fame gets you through the world. It gets you a little privilege, it gets you a better service. I don’t see that as a bad thing. You have put in the work, you’ve represented your country, you’ve entertained the world.
But there can be no trust.
The day came when a contract was put in front of me with the numbers US$3,000,000. The day came when even Stanford could seem small change.
$3m to play in the Indian Cricket League. Ramnaresh Sarwan had one for $2m. We looked at them together. ‘Hmm. What we gonna do, Sars?’
You go around and ask. They all say, ‘Chris, who’s gonna tell you to turn down three million?’
I couldn’t sleep. Lying there staring at the ceiling. All the time thinking, this cannot be real, this is too good to be true.
I went to bigger heads. Lalit Modi, boss of the IPL, and the view from the other side. ‘I can’t tell you what to do, but just know the IPL will be the bigger and better thing. And if you go and play, you won’t play for the West Indies again, because the ICL will not be sanctioned by the boards.’
I still wanted to play for the West Indies, so I turned it down. Too good to be true, and in the end it was. A lot of people didn’t get their money, and didn’t get to play for their team.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve made some bad investments. Sometime you get involved and it doesn’t work out. As a player I have lost a lot of money.
That’s why I never sign any agreement with any agent. I’m more like a freelancer. You come to me with something on the table, then we work it out from there. That’s how I do my stuff. I’m not signing anything with any particular body. Then, once a thing is whole, I have a lawyer, and sometimes even lawyers are rip-off, and sometimes you have to pay the hard price.
Know I don’t shed any tears over it. I look up and smile about it. It’s just a process. Yuh cyaan have a smooth life.
The big things I do on my own. Triple Century, my bar on Knutsford Boulevard in New Kingston. A guy came to me with the idea, and rather than going into business with him, I just bought it out.
It’s a cool place. Let me recommend the CG45, a shot glass of coconut vodka, Cafe PatrÓn and Hennessy, dark as night, lit by flames on top. If you like it sweet try the Batter’s Paradise – brandy, Bailey’s, cream and a cherry.
Even there, in my chill spot, I see how some people are. You can keep a party at your house, and all parties at my house are free parties, and you’ll see them come to the free parties. But at the club now, when you have to pay to come in, you wouldn’t see them appear. If they appear, they won’t buy a drink. If they do appear and they do buy a drink, they’ll buy the cheapest drink. One beer. One beer, sipping, never another. Whereas when I’m at their places I’ll buy bottles, bottles of champagne.
That’s how people are. They use you to get what they want. So if I’m going to keep a party, I’ll go by Triple Century. If I’m not at home, you’ll find me there every night. Not necessarily drinking, just chilling, taking photos with the people, signing away the night. A lot of people gravitate to it, and a lot of people love it.
There you will find the two people I trust more than any others. Raddy Haynes, my old form teacher from Excelsior, now manager of both my foundation and my bar. Natasha, my girl, the mother of my child yet to be born.
I keep them close. Those are my right and left hand, those two. My right and my left.