Guilty as charged

Neither the Windward Islands Cricket Board of Control, nor the executive of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association Inc can evade the criticism levelled at them over the coverage of the 2017 Windward Islands Senior Men’s Cricket Tournament, which ends in Dominica today.

Both are culpable, as there was no guaranteed media reports would be initiated by either entity.

This is against the realities that Vincentian media houses could, on their own, seek out such information from sources in Dominica.

But zooming in on the mandate of the St Vincent and the Grenadines cricket authorities, they would have erred big time in making that extra push, to have some reports reaching the Vincentian public.

It is almost inexcusable in this age of fast-paced technology that information would not have been coming here with regularity, highlighting the fortunes of the Vincentian outfit.

With the absence of a media personnel in place by the Windward Islands Cricket Board of Control, or a media officer travelling with the St Vincent and the Grenadines team, the management of the latter could have undertaken that responsibility, even if just to provide us with the basic statistics.

The SVG Cricket Association Inc’s website, up until last Wednesday, only had some of the details of the SVG versus St Lucia match, in which the former won by an innings and 2 runs.

But they can only disseminate what was received out of Dominica, thus compounding the predicament.

In saying so, even on the home front, the SVG Cricket Association Inc, in recent times, has itself been slacking as it relates to updating results of matches in its local competitions, on its website.

The wait at times goes beyond Wednesday, more than three days after the completion of the matches.

Again, this is the case, although there is a system of scoring with the use of tablets and with the association littered with persons who possess that technology savvy necessary to facilitate the smooth transition of the information.

Therefore, the SVGCA Inc is slowly unravelling some of its good work, and is letting it be evilly spoken about.

It is now pointless to boast of the real time online coverage of the West Indies Under-19 tournament held here last year and last month, the West Indies Women’s competition, when youcannot be just as efficient with your local undertakings.

As the keepers of the sport here, other events are unfolding which must be arrested with some degree of urgency.

Although highlighted at the start of the 2017 national cricket season, the SVGCA Inc continues to be lethargic and lenient on some Premier Division teams that deviate from the standards of uniformity when engaged in competition matches.

Some of the players will turn up to matches with various shades of white, oblivious to the set requirements of decorum.

Whilst one may quickly argue that the umpires are the ones in charge of the matches, surely the guidelines, directives and enforcement of the accepted mode of dress must come from the executive.

These are some simple issues, and once given time, will gnaw away at the core of the benchmarks that are sometimes glowingly spoken about and put into text.

Hopefully though, those in authority will see the wisdom in criticism and act accordingly.

But, for the moment, they are guilty as charged, with only a reprimand meted out to the offenders.