I confess having had to shake my head sadly upon reading and re-reading Clay Smith's column last week in The Royal Gazette banner headlined “Why We Need a Three-day Cup Match”.And even worse than Clay's outpourings, I wince each time I hear radio talk show commentators and callers who ought to know better expounding about having a so-called “result” and “a guaranteed winner” as opposed to a “draw”. And displaying an even more abysmal ignorance of what Cup Match is all about are those who contend Cup Match should be played at the National Sports Centre.Cup Match is not just another county or league game. It is a national, heritage-pregnant event, unlike any other in the world, full of what I call “soul force”.' It has astounded world famous cricket personalities and scribes and even overwhelmed ordinary persons who have experienced a Cup Match for the first time.What happens at the end of each Cup Match is THE RESULT! Win, lose or draw. There have been “draws” that were far more exciting and even nail-biting than some spectacular wins.What Cup Match needs today, more than anything else, are more Alma (Champ) Hunts and Nigel (Chopper) Hazels. Also other legends like Alec (Cocky) Steed, Bos'un' Swainson, Austin (Toes) Simons and his brothers, Austin (Cheesy) Hughes, the Darrell and Raynor Brothers, Leroy (Cubby) Richardson and Clarence (Tuppence) Parfitt, whose names readily come to mind.It was Champ Hunt who put Bermuda indelibly on the world map, and his cousin Chopper Hazel who sustained it. And in this day and time, it is scholars like Dr Radell Tankard with his Heritage Production Team, and Dr Michael Bradshaw and the Bermuda Friendly Societies, who are inspired to keep alive the fundamental heritage elements of Cup Match.It is my considered belief that Cup Match was the template for the one-day World Cup cricket games that have revived and excited international cricket. CB Rock, the Caribbean's foremost correspondent and cricket analyst way back in 1931 zeroed in on that after seeing his first Cup Match, as did others who followed him in subsequent years, including Tony Cozier and Garfield Sobers.Comparing Bermuda with the Test-playing countries like Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad, Rock writing in the Barbados Advocate noted Bermuda was not up to the standard of those colonies.“In Bermuda cricket is played for four or more months in a year in furious baseball fashion. ‘Cricket in a hurry' aptly describes it. People there are too busy making money to give arduous thought to cricket, apart from Cup Match between Somerset and St George's in which the pick of the Island take part.” Rock called it the annual blood and thunder, the greatest sporting event in Bermuda, the occasion on which lion and lamb rub shoulder to shoulder, talk friendly-like and laugh without the heavens falling.“All Bermuda takes part in Cup Match. It is played as far as excitement goes at 230 degrees Fahrenheit, beyond boiling point. Cricket is as much a test of temperament as of skill, and believe me, 50 runs under these feverish conditions is worth any normal hundred,” said Rock. He went on to single out Alma Hunt, “who came across like a colossus, making all others look like pigmies.“Alma showed rapture over the match. What impressed was not the fact he made the highest score, or created a record by aggregating 147 runs in two innings. It was the way in which he made them. His restraint. His grit. His artistry. Alma went in when half of his team had been mowed down for 20 runs. By dogged, yet scintillating cricket his brother Amon and himself pulled the side out of the mire.”Rock noting that three Hunt brothers played in that Cup Match, stated cricket in some families in Bermuda runs like lunacy in other families. Alma's contribution was 70-odd. He was a treat to watch. His quick footedness was disconcerting to good length and spin. When he decided to hit he pulverised.This writer is obliged to note that I went to the pages of my book “Freedom Fighters from Monk to Mazumbo for the foregoing references to CB Rock. And also that Rock's visit to Bermuda in 1931 was just after the nefarious 1930 Innkeepers Act had been enacted giving hotels, restaurants and theatres legal sanction to refuse service to Negroes and Jews. And that Champ, barely out of his teens, was then being scouted for his illustrious career as a professional in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.