How low can they go?

Mon, Jun 25, '07

 

commentary by MARTIN WILLIAMSON

To say it's been a bad week for the West Indies Cricket Board would rank as one of the great understatements.

Already under pressure for years of poor management which left it with a multi-million dollar debt that it now seems not even the World Cup will clear, the WICB has increasingly been under fire from many quarters over its running of the sport.

This week it has continued on its path of self destruction, a route which wouldn't matter so much if it wasn't dragging the whole game down with it.

The loss of the final Test on Monday was disappointing, but few expected anything else given what had gone before. Even for those of us who grew up watching the awesome West Indies sides of the 1970s and 80s, the time for natural gloating when you finally land a few blows of your own has long since passed. West Indies were not good enough, no doubting that. But the side had arrived in the UK with almost no preparation and it showed.

The dust hadn't even settled on the Tests when it emerged that yet again the WICB could not even get the players who were joining the one-day squad to the UK in time for the opening warm-up at Worcester. Instead, the management were left to scramble round for replacements from universities and local leagues. It would have been embarrassing for an amateur Associate country.

Then Chris Gayle, finally appointed as one-day captain after his selection had initially been vetoed by the WICB, hit out. "The board is always talking about players needing to change but we, the players, need changes from the board as well," he said. "We can't be out in the wilderness all the time because we are the ones who are getting all the blame. These are some of the things that we as players have to go through. The WICB says they want the best out of players but we also need the best out of the board."

His comments came on the day that the results of the arbitration hearing into the contracts for the tour of England came out. For the fifth time in five referrals to the arbitrator, the board lost. With a 0-5 record, you would think it might have occurred to the executive that it was doing something wrong. All the more so as squabbles between its own officials came out in the findings.

Not a bit of it. All that the WICB seemed concerned with was trying to score petty points against WIPA, the players' association, over a vague and disputed agreement not to discuss the arbitration. It came out of its corner like a pummeled journeyman boxer swinging wildly in the desperate hope he might land one lucky knockout punch but falling flat on his face in the process.

Sir David Simmons, the head of the arbitration panel, noted that the relationship between the WICB and WIPA needed addressing. The reaction of the WICB's CEO Bruce Aanensen was about as conciliatory as a punch in the ribs.

And the week ended with a shambles, entirely of the board's own making, over an A-team tour to Zimbabwe that almost nobody, other than the WICB and the desperate Zimbabwe board, really seems to want.

Each day has brought assurances that a side would be announced imminently. As of Saturday night, no squad had been named. What's more, two choices as captain - Sylvester Joseph and Daren Ganga - turned down the invitations and the hunt continued.

The suspicion that a side had not been named because the board was struggling to find players in the light of WIPA's condemnation of the trip grows. So, the tour looks less likely with each passing day - they are due to leave in six days' time - and as WIPA has not even been consulted over the trip, yet another arbitration looms.

And, to cap it all, combative comments accusing WIPA of refusing to show evidence that there were genuine security concerns were blown out the water late on Friday when CARICOM, the Caribbean Community and Common Market , who formed the plank of the board's claims all was well in Zimbabwe, came out and said that no such assurances had been given and it would not report to the WICB until June 30.

If almost any business was run as poorly as the WICB - financially and in terms of public and employee relations - then the senior directors would be held to account and, in all likelihood, removed from office. And yet with the WICB, nothing changes. The one new face, Aanensen, who took over as CEO in April, has so far shown that he is as belligerent as the rest of them, perhaps more so.

Few would argue that the players are not largely to blame for the current crisis in Caribbean cricket. But instead of getting behind them and battling together to find a way out, the WICB seems determined to exploit what it sees as a weakness among the players to divide and crush them.

What is happening on the field is sad. What is going on off it is a disgrace.

* Martin Williamson is executive editor of Cricinfo. This commentary was republished with permission.