Stop the Mas (we calling W.I. cricket)

17.JULY.09

“Well, it can hardly get worse, can it?” That was the rhetorical question asked by one regional commentator in the midst of the debacle which the hosting of the 2007 Cricket World Cup by the Caribbean turned out to be. Then, many of us would have been inclined to agree with him, for who could imagine that the regional cricketing fraternity could sink even lower? Wrong we were, judging by the latest impasse in West Indies cricket, a seemingly bottomless pit of embarrassment and disgrace.{{more}}

Cricket fans in the Caribbean have become resigned to the on-field disappointments of the West Indies cricket team, yet they still hang on to the possibility of “one of these days,” even though the few peaks and multiple troughs of the regional team’s performances make it even more unlikely that that “one day” may ever come. But they continue to wish all the best for West Indies cricket – the best team selected, the most capable captain chosen, the players giving their all, a visionary and efficient Board and management. Idle thinking, it all seems.

Right on the heels of the farce that was the ill-advised tour of England, replete with a test in April, the West Indies came home to host an Indian tour. While the Indians were in the Caribbean, there was to be a gala launching of the West Indies’ hosting of the 2010 World Twenty 20 competition. Another embarrassment! The entire West Indies team failed to turn up and it was our guests who had to bail out the situation. What was wrong? Silence from the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) left us feeling suspicious.

We did not have to wait long for the answer. The long-standing dispute between the WICB and the West Indies Players Association (WICA) has resulted in virtual rebellion by the team, which simply refused to turn up in St. Vincent to honour the Test commitment against Bangladesh. This time the matter went even further, for not even second or third-string players seemed prepared to play, leaving the feeble Board scrambling to field a team and the Windwards and Vincentian cricket officials rueing their luck, and losses.

The matter has now reached the stage of the WICB issuing an ultimatum and the WIPA responding as one would to the harmless barking of a toothless bulldog. Alarmingly, the regionally respected honorary Vice President of WIPA, Jimmy Adams, himself no stranger to regional cricket controversies, has come to the conclusion that “If we can’t agree, stop the cricket,” while the veteran commentator Tony Cozier has recalled the recommendation of the Jamaica Gleaner in 2007 that the West Indies should withdraw from Test cricket for a period while it puts its house in order and rebuilds for the future. Things are that bad.

The charges and counter-charges by the WICB and WIPA are doing us all no good. Cricket is the regional institution that binds the region; it is the single international currency of note that we have. It is more than the egos of the Huntes, Camerons, Ramnarines and Gayles. It is ours! When we can’t get the whole region, all the governments, to invest in regional air transport, they all spent taxpayers money to build stadia for the 2007 World Cup (white elephants, some describe them today). That is what cricket means to us.

It is, therefore, the duty of those charged with our welfare to intervene, to stop the blood-letting, to save us further embarrassment. As Tony Cozier himself has warned, we cannot become another cricketing Zimbabwe. The interest of the region cannot be sacrificed on the altar of selfishness or incompetence. It is time to restore sanity.