WICB up for sale

Sale! Sale! Sale! A Massive Clearance Sale has been called on the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). Come get anything, any tournament, offers at rock bottom prices. No long delays, prices are negotiable, with big discounts available.{{more}}

Sounds like a blow out sale at a merchant store. No, that is what the regional Cricket organisation has become.

Like a market goat, the WICB has fallen to the point, worthy of almost nothing, as the men who are supposed to be guardians of regional Cricket sovereignity are selling the game’s birthright for less than thirty pieces of silver.

Its latest sale by the Judases is that of the regional one day limited competition to a North American company in Florida.

Slated for September in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the WICB released last week only snippets of information, stating “A lucrative package has been reached with a Florida based sponsor”.

Despite being aware that the Board is in alms, their decision shows the extent to which the administrators have plummeted to the abyss of disrespecting the people of the Caribbean.

Yes, the Board is relatively broke; people do not attend the matches in droves as days gone by; yes, KFC’s three year deal has expired; but the only other option was to take it where who pays the Piper calls the tune. Myopic, they are, as the shot callers of the WICB are experts in economizing their efforts, selling themselves as characters who lack spine.

Instead of looking for alternatives, the WICB has belittled itself to days here in this country, when it was demeaning to wear a cheap piece of clothing known as “one ah dem”. The Board has lost its bearings and is easily bought.

Where are the dignity and pride of the Caribbean?

Three years ago, there were some regional conglomerates, willing to come to the rescue of West Indies Cricket. Where are they now?

Or, was it a case, then, of helping because of nationality, as assistance is only dished out according to who is at the helm of the Board?

What, then, if the Board persists in taking each of the regional competitions to hither and yon, then we in the Caribbean can become aliens of the sport that we claim to have given a new dimension and spectator appeal.

It must be a slap in the face for the governments of the region who have invested so much in the refurbishment of stadiums, or the construction of new ones, to learn of these developments.

The opponents of these stadia must be rolling with a fit of laughter as their hopes of their becoming white elephants are being fast tracked by the wise folly of the Board.

Earlier this year, the regional four day competition, the Carib Cup, had to make way for the flourishing Stanford 20/20, but that has paled in light of the recent decisions.

Of course, the WICB was rewarded financially by the Stanford grouping to cast aside its premier competition, for their programme.

It is for this reason that Stanford often sounds like a spoiled child, when he does not get what he wants when he wants, as he can just simply throw his tantrums, offer them a lollipop, and he is back in business.

And, Stanford’s pronouncements two weeks ago, in the form of advice, that the game should be run by a central single entity, may well be given consideration, as the Board is not only bankrupt of funds, but of ideas. Hence, anything that sounds good to their itchy ears may well be taken on board.

Craftily being brainwashed by their reformed colonialism, the Board and, by extension, the people of the Caribbean are at the mercies of the masters who dangle their goodies, hypnotising the vulnerable.

But all this should not surprise anyone who has been taking a close look at the operations of the Board in the last few years.

With a craving for anything foreign, the taste buds are salivated at the meeting halls of those hell bent on reading the last rites of the game for us.

The way the good fellows sucked in, in wholesale fashion, the prescribed medicine of the 2007 World Cup has left us more crippled with marginalisation of our own affairs.

The policy of hiring foreign coaches who have little interest in our Cricket, its legacies, but they come, leech the Board’s skeletal finance, embellish their resumes, then wash their mouths on the players, their employers, and the Caribbean culture.

Ironically, we have survived Slavery, but the game that was heralded as the aspirations of the peoples of the Caribbean; an outlet that was supposed to emancipate us from the shackles of our colonial past is being revisited by the operations of the members of the WICB.

And, the convulsions that have surfaced among the hierarchy of the WICB over last week put the price tag in them next to nothing. If left any longer, immediate dumping will have to take place as their shelf life has expired.

What has definitely surpassed its expiration date is the piece of suitable squat land that was recently cleared of its overgrown vegetation at the Sion Hill Playing Field, inappropriately called the “Mound”.

kingroache@yahoo.com