Garner Slams 'Attitude Problems' of Youths

Wed, Mar 6, '02

 

Joel Garner has hit out at the attitude of young Caribbean players accusing them of making too many excuses for their failures. Garner, who was recently honoured by the government of Anguilla, implored the youngsters to work hard at their game just like he and his former colleagues did in the past.

"I think that we have a lot of young people with a lot of talent," the man nicknamed ?Big Bird? said.

"The problem is that they are not prepared to work hard. (They) are always finding excuses for failures. I am not going to call names, but I think it is important that when they go out they recognise they are representing seven million people and not an island," said the West Indies selector.

"The great players before me like Sir Learie (Constantine), Sir Frank (Worrell), Sir Garry Sobers and others paved the way for West Indies cricket and its success. I understood what that meant and so too did the fellas I played with; so our unity and understanding inspired us and not only made us better cricketers, but better people.

"We have to stop saying it is easy, it is not easy! When I look around at the players that we are exposing to international cricket, they have got the talent and ability, but they are not prepared to work. You don?t get nothing for nothing, you have to pay something for something and my advice to people who want to be aspiring West Indian cricketers is to go out and you have to make some sacrifices. We (selectors) are only a small cog in what happens in West Indies cricket."

Garner, who claimed 259 wickets at just about 22 runs each, put the blame on the administrators. "I think that a lot of it (attitude) comes from the people who run the cricket, who look at it in a very narrow way. We have to dispel all of these notions that we have and understand that the game is still bigger than the island.

"The territories have come together, they have 14 people who are trustees in West Indies cricket and West Indies cricket is in their hands. Therefore they have to make some serious and crucial decisions."

He defended the job of his fellow selectors, and rejected suggestions that there are biases in the selection of players. "It is interesting when you read the comments, thoughts of what people say about selectors?I can say to you that when we sit down we look at the best possible 14. We don?t trade or bargain. In the absence of performance the only thing we got to go on is a judgement call.

"So I want the players to make it difficult for us on performance to be selected. And if you make it difficult on performance I don?t think it will be difficult, because if you are performing I will say that you were selected on performance."

* SOURCE: Guyana Chronicle.