Dwayne Leverock and the moment that shook the world: "I have taken many better catches than that"

He flies through the air, his outstretched arm clutching at thin air. As he lands, the watching world remains entranced. That is sport’s power – to stop an audience in its tracks, to create everlasting memories of moments, to make a mockery of logic

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The scene is Port of Spain. We are back in 2007; the World Cup has arrived in the Caribbean. Malachi Jones – then a 17-year-old Bermudan tearaway – is at the top of his mark. He is about to bowl at the most star-studded of Indian batting lineups.

The game is six deliveries old, with Robin Uthappa resting on his bat as Jones readies himself. As he gallops in, Sourav Ganguly hovers at the non-striker’s end. Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh are sat on the balcony.

In every sense, this is a mismatch. But then, for a split second, time stands still.

He flies through the air, his outstretched arm clutching at thin Trinidadian air. And as he lands, the watching world remains entranced. That is sport’s power – to stop an audience in its tracks, to create everlasting memories of passing moments, to make a mockery of logic.

“The rest is history,” Dwayne Leverock laughs. What follows is close to a lap of honour – both immensely premature, and yet entirely appropriate.

The ball stuck in Leverock’s right palm, though he is left-handed. At twenty stone, he was one of international cricket’s heaviest ever athletes, but a stalwart of Bermudan cricket – the tiny island making its World Cup debut. It is a story both unlikely and unusual for a sport which, at least on the international stage, has so often been devoid of heart-warming narratives. It shouldn’t make sense, but then cricket rarely does.

Indeed, India won the game by 257 runs; it remains the fifth-highest winning margin in one-day international history. Yet, twelve years on, that fact is an inconsequential footnote beneath an iconic image – that of Leverock’s sizeable frame mid-flight.

“I have taken many better catches than that,” he adds – it is hard to imagine how – as he recalls the day that made him a household name in cricketing circles; perhaps, as the sport’s ultimate cult hero.

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Leverock dismissed Kumar Sangakkara with the ball in Bermuda's World Cup defeat to Sri Lanka.

“Before the bowler came in for that over, I told my wicketkeeper that I was going to take a step to my right because I felt something coming. I knew that Robin Uthappa liked to guide the ball down to third man to get off the mark.

“I took that step just so I could give myself every opportunity to take a catch. So, I made that movement and then the ball was outside the off-stump. As soon as he flashed, I said: ‘I’m going.’”

It is the rationale behind any slip catch: a skill born out of gut instinct and faultless coordination. Of course, to a certain degree, that was all it was – a singular piece of action within the wider context of a group-stage match between cricketing David and Goliath.

Yet, for Leverock, it has added a curious layer to an otherwise routine existence. It is not a moment that he has ever wished away; its enduring legacy makes him smile. When he reflects on the impact it had on his homeland, it cuts to the heart of why cricket’s associate nations feel so cheated by a ring-fenced, ten-team World Cup.

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He prefixes his words: “I’m a very humble person,” he says. His soft voice does not match the exterior.

“When I look back on it, it really was just a great time in life. It was the first time my country had ever been to the World Cup. The people were actually able to go and witness it, and people back home were happy.

“People do still recognise me, so I just take it in my stride and embrace it. It has allowed me to meet new people.

“I do buy drinks, but I have had a lot of drinks bought for me too.”

Leverock stops short of calling it a life-changing experience. After all, he is his country’s all-time top ODI wicket-taker. On an island of just 65,000 inhabitants, revered status was already guaranteed.

Yet, as he reflects on Bermuda’s fortnight at the epicentre of the global cricketing stage, it is clear that the tournament has left a lasting impression.

It was a chapter that pushed away any lingering self-doubt. Part of the viral charm of Leverock’s catch in the social media era is in its shock factor, the assumption that men like Leverock don’t leap airborne like that. A misconception quashed in the blink of an eye.

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In his younger days, Leverock played football for 11-time Bermudian Premier League winners the Pembroke Hamilton Club Zebras.

“Initially as I was growing up, I thought about [not looking like the archetypal cricketer],” he reflects. “But people will always have their thoughts, their choices, their opinions.

“I always knew that an avid cricket fan would not just look at that. They would look at the stats and understand what type of cricketer I was. If they knew their cricketing history, they would know of people like Colin Milburn. They weren’t small guys, but they produced when they had to produce.”

Milburn – all eighteen stone of him – was briefly one of English cricket’s most exciting talents, before a car crash caused the loss of his left eye.

Leverock speaks of partying with Chris Gayle and getting to know England’s players after facing them in a warmup for the competition. He dismissed both Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood that day.

“It felt so good to know that I was able to compete,” he says. “Playing at the World Cup was one of my goals when I first started to play cricket – that one day we could get there.”

"I do buy drinks, but I have had a lot of drinks bought for me too"

If that was the ultimate dream - an adventure founded on a shock run in the 2005 ICC Trophy, then it is a picture that sits worlds away from the left-arm spinner’s reality – both then and now.

For, Leverock is a policeman and a jailer – it is a necessary reminder of the extent of the fairy-tale at play. He was a part-timer in a team of part-timers, men with jobs taking on those for whom cricket was their each and every day.

“In Bermuda, if you are a sportsman, people do recognise you,” he explains of his standing. To much of the world, his is a name inextricably linked to a single moment; to Bermudians, he is a national hero – the star of a solitary World Cup journey.

“The thing about it is that if you engage with the public – whatever type of person they are, even if they’re people on the street – you do get respect.”

And in his own line of work – the world of law enforcement, it is more important than most. Being Dwayne Leverock, he admits, is a perk that only makes the job easier.

“It helps,” he chuckles with a distinctive twang. “It helps a lot. It helps a real lot. I treat them how they want to be treated,” Leverock says. They are the words of a man who knows his place.

“I just look at them and tell them: ‘If you know you’ve done wrong, you have to look forward to dealing with the consequences.’ I get that respect back.

“There have been a few incidents where you do get people who are disrespectful, but you have to take that in your stride. Even after they’ve done what they’ve done, they want to fight you. But you just have to continue speaking to them until they calm down. Then they understand.”

Balancing policing with international sport, as Leverock did during his playing days, came with its own challenges. Months would pass without seeing his family; he was a man on two separate missions.

"When I look back on it, it really was just a great time in life"

“I had some good people in my corner,” he says. “They knew what I was getting myself ready for and what I had to do to represent my country.

“We all sat down as a squad in 2005 and said: ‘Are we all going to make this commitment to make it to that World Cup?’ We all challenged each other.

“At six in the morning, we would be training. We all trained before work. If you needed a lift, you got someone who was passing by to pick you up. We had to keep each other going.”

These days, for Bermuda, the notion of replicating 2007’s wild ride has, perhaps, never felt so distant.

Beyond Leverock’s moment, it was a World Cup that highlighted associate talent; Ireland defeated both Pakistan and Bangladesh, while there were other promising showings from Kenya and Canada. Neither India nor Pakistan made it past the group phase: a moment – twelve years on – that may well have worked against the involvement of these developing nations.

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Leverock's nephew, Kamau, has become a key member of the current national side

“It is disappointing for the associates to be cut off and pushed back,” Leverock admits. “They could have opened it to 14 teams so at least some associates have an opportunity.

“It would give them more games and give them more progression and it would help to move the game forward. If we’re just going to have the top teams, what then happens to the associate teams?

“If they are not playing as much cricket as the big teams, then they start to fall off the ladder in those countries and other sports will take over.”

Having witnessed first-hand both the rise and fall of cricket in his country, few are better qualified to speak on the dangerous effects that purgatory can have on participation levels and enthusiasm. Quite simply, progression is impossible without a tangible objective.

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“After a certain point, if you are not involved in the Division Two competition, you don’t have much to look forward to,” he says.

“As you drop down, you lose out on that pathway. You have to wait until a promotion tournament comes along in order to move forward. That is why it would be so great if they could be looking forward to the World Cup. It has that prestige.”

Leverock should know. He dreamt of his moment.

“I said to myself at the time: ‘I’m in the World Cup, so hopefully I can do something that will be remembered.’”

World Cup 2019 | News | Global Game | Features | 1Banner |
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