West Indies Cricket At Another Crossroad

The recent dismantling of the Indian team in the first two Test matches against England should put into context performances by the West Indian team in the home series against India. The Indian team that arrived in the Caribbean was ranked number one in Test match cricket, had just won the 50 over World Cup, were former T20 world champions and had several members who were victorious in IPL 4.

The absence of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh, Verender Sehwag, Gautam Gambir and Shanthakumaran Sreesanth from the touring party would have presented the WI with an opportunity to win the T20 and ODI series and compete in the Test series.

Our inability to do this speaks to the failure of successive administrations and the lack of a long-term development plan for WI cricket. We the fans are under no illusions—we do not expect the glory years to return, but we would settle for a competitive team. The current administration has seen it fit to break the back of the current team, doing away with senior players and investing heavily in younger players. In my mind this is a cop-out. To me, the flaw in this approach will be what will happen in ten years’ time when another administration deems these youthful players as failures and start another rebuilding process. It’s a cycle of incompetence. It is a fact that the WICB has failed to administer the sport effectively and due to years of unprofessionalism they have empowered WIPA.

Recently WICB, WIPA, players and administrators have all taken hardcore positions due to years of mistrust, mismanagement and miscommunication, unwilling to flinch, no party willing to soften their position for the sake of WI cricket. There seems to be no end to this nonsense. The WI game lacks professionalism at all levels and while all parties speak about their responsibility to the WI legacy, their actions tell us a different story. Nepotism and insularity, greed and zero accountability have become the watchwords for WI cricket incompetence.

The WICB needs to realize that there are opportunities for players to become wealthy without playing International cricket. Yet with all of these 20/20 leagues, WI players still very much want to play for the regional team. Therefore the responsibility is theirs to effectively manage players and engage the WIPA to avoid conflicts.

Our players are very aware of what their international counterparts earn and the support structure in place for these professionals in their respective countries. They need to rise above the politics when they set foot on the field and let their cricket do the talking, so when there is conflict with the WICB the public offers its support to the players, instead of the general apathy we get nowadays. The scary thing for WI cricket is that there is a generation of cricketers in the Caribbean who do not know what it is like for WI to have a good team. All they know is calypso-collapso cricket, numerous whitewashes and the superiority of our opponents. The glory days of the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s mean nothing to them.

With this in mind it is important to change our cricketing culture. Administrators and players need to be mature, responsible and professional in their conduct, with open channels of dialogue and an effective player-management system to resolve conflicts and ensure a united dressing room. This must also be present at the level of the territorial boards where performance, professionalism and accountability must be the new watchwords. If this is not done soon, then WI cricket will continue to wallow in its own dysfunctional incompetence and cricket fans will continue to fool themselves believing the team is ‘improving’.