Shall we fail our cricket too?
Last week I mentioned that the information required to produce a strategic plan for West Indies cricket had been compiled seven years ago, but few remembered what I was talking about. It didn't surprise me much, as once the document had been presented to CARICOM, it disappeared.
The reference was to the CARICOM/UWI cricket conference at the Cave Hill Campus, exactly seven years ago this month, where stakeholders shared views and recommendations for the game's development. Prior to the conference, committees had been gathering this information on a national basis, and reports were submitted by Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
It is tempting to set out the recommendations here, but space would not allow more than a bare mention, and I am hoping that the regional newspapers will publish the entire report, as its contents are just as relevant today.
One marvels at how much of what was said and agreed upon then remains unfulfilled. That aside, when one considers how much effort went into planning that conference and getting the pre-conference information gathering mobilised, and then having more than 200 recommendations organised into ten broad recommendations complete with strategic plans, one is loath to see all that ground work buried while a fresh process begins. And who will drive it this time?
Can the same people really be asked to return to that exercise with any optimism after the experience of the first?
It is dispiriting to be working enthusiastically on something that promises to bring real value to the region and then discover that people entrusted to take it further are committed only to lip service.
I speak here of the organisation known as CARICOM that received the report with due formality and then did nothing with it. Those who did nothing are regional leaders who have proclaimed themselves great lovers of cricket and genuine supporters of its development – prime ministers like Keith Mitchell, Owen Arthur, Ralph Gonsalves, Kenny Anthony, P.J. Patterson (I won't include Patrick Manning here only because I've never heard him say he likes cricket) and Lester Bird.
Now the WICB has appointed P.J. Patterson to chair a committee to tell West Indians (or is it just the WICB?) what is wrong with their cricket and what must be done to set it right. This "most important" committee that the WICB will ever appoint, according to its omniscient president Ken Gordon, will deliver the final word on the subject this month.
Mr Patterson assembled with his counterparts to receive that report seven years ago. Did he read it? Did any of them? If they did and they failed to act, then how can we trust that they love the cricket the way we do? If they didn't and they were content to just shelve the report along with other documents of regional importance, then can we trust that they are paying attention to our interests?
Will Mr Patterson, as chair of this very important WICB committee, refer to that report as part of the research?
The WICB's presentation at that very conference outlined a number of initiatives to be undertaken in the developmental context. What happened to them?
With no disrespect to committee members, that's why it is difficult to feel any optimism that this exercise will be no more than a political sop.
I wish somebody would publish the report so that people can see how much work was done by people outside of the WICB; and how long the information has been lying there unused.
CARICOM and the WICB have failed our cricket; shall we fail our cricket too?