How do they manage to keep their jobs?

by PETER MONTGOMERY

Watching West Indies cricket this season on television has been painful and it is a relief that we are one match away from the end of it all. It is true that the West Indies did fairly well against the Sri Lankans early on but have slipped away since against the superior Australians.

The performance of the players on the field of play though is not what has caused the region to be disgraced on international television across the globe. It is the rank incompetence of the administrators of the game that has caused many an observer to have little doubt of how unprofessional and utterly hopeless West Indies Cricket Board officers are.

The WICB's management of affairs at every venue where international cricket has been played this season has been a never-ending debacle. From Guyana to St Kitts, every match has had periods where the television and radio commentators have had reason to castigate the WICB officials for their incompetence and leave us, the proud people of the Caribbean to squirm, head bowed in disgrace, at their merciless but frank comments.

How many times this season have you turned on your televisions to see players and umpires standing around on field under bright sunshine as some men scramble about like headless chickens to fix some off field problem or another which was directly impacting on the cricket?

The WICB has degenerated to such incomparable levels of incompetence that the once popular remark ‘cricket is the only thing that starts on time in the Caribbean’ is no longer true. Twice – in Barbados and Grenada – the start of play was delayed by in excess of ten minutes due to the sightscreen area being embarrassingly skewed. Bungling officials took ages in television time to fix basic problems which should never have existed and which are non-existent in other parts of the international cricket playing world.

Countless times during this series, advertising hoardings have unsighted batsmen or have fallen over like a deck of cards, sightscreens have been stuck, ground staff and other personnel have been so poorly managed that they constantly disrupted play by moving about behind the bowler’s arm. Let us not forget the disaster at the Sir Viv Richards Stadium in Antigua when play could not resume due to a faulty outfield.

While the WICB is always happy to lay the blame at the doorstep of the local boards in each territory, the WICB is the body which is ultimately responsible for the organization and management of each game. It takes charge of every facility and it is the body which has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that there is an approved level of readiness.

The WICB has officers on the ground who, at great expense, are flown to every venue and are responsible for the smooth operation of the game. Whoever they are, they have failed miserably. They have demonstrated nothing but ineptitude, incompetence and are undoubtedly wholly unfit for the roles assigned them.

With what has gone on during this series one wonders why the WICB bothered to have them on the ground in any case? Why did the WICB not know about the problems of the Sir Viv Richards Stadium outfield beforehand? Or is it a case of them having known but ignoring the problem?

Why did the WICB officers on the ground in Grenada not have the sightscreens ready weeks or at least days before the start of the game? How incompetent must one be to allow the sightscreen to be affixed with the sponsors logos even after play is supposed to have started? Why aren’t these officials operating in such a way that basic problems at every venue are solved well in advance of the start of each game?

One has to wonder if the WICB spends its time scouring the region for the most incompetent people it can find then hand them important portfolios all in an effort to bring shame and disgrace to the Caribbean. From the evidence this must be the modus operandi. One has to also wonder how these same people are not made to answer for their blundering incompetence. How do they manage to keep their jobs?

They have caused the umpires and players and fans unnecessary frustration and grief and have embarrassed the entire Caribbean to such an extent that CARICOM and the tourism authority of each country ought to communicate their displeasure to the WICB with urgency.

Words such as ‘fiasco’ have been used with alarming regularity by all media – television commentators, radio commentators, pressmen and even text commentators on Cricinfo. Surely this cannot have a positive effect on potential tourists to the region.

And Sri Lanka Cricket and Cricket Australia cannot be pleased with what their players and officials have had to endure. The Australian coach was even seen on television remonstrating his disgust to officials when one sightscreen issue could not be fixed.

Surely the two visiting cricket boards would be in order to officially report the glaring incompetence of the WICB to the governing body that is the International Cricket Council. And the ICC must be obligated to demand a higher standard of professionalism of the WICB. Zimbabwe, funnily enough, is the best thing to have happened to the current WICB as the atrocities in that country have been enough to shield the disgraceful operation that is the WICB in this part of the world. Remove Zimbabwe from world cricket and the ICC will quickly recognize what a festering disaster the WICB is and how, on an annual basis, the competence level of the WICB is plummeting.

And when all is said and done these are only the foul ups which have been caught on television. Can you imagine the hundreds more which must have gone on behind the scenes? No wonder Chris Gayle could not find his 14th player in St Kitts. Someone at the WICB probably forgot to book a flight for him but even, that would not have been a first.