Nothing More to Lose
Mon, Jul 31, '06
Two sides of West Indies cricket are unfolding simultaneously, both revealing deeply contrasting images. Put those images side by side and consider them carefully and perhaps you will see the possibility of a completely new picture emerging dialectically.
One image is that of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and its tiresome and repetitive crises. Financial disarray, contract disputes, shabby personnel relations, poor marketing, accusations of dictatorships and croneyism ? a constant maelstrom of discontent.
The Indians call it bad karma, a negative vibration that feeds off negative energy. Nothing emanating from this board is new. All its current ills have been run through the mill before.
Until the WICB becomes a learning organisation, it is condemned to repeat its mistakes. We think of it with a sense of something like an old, frayed carpet that over time has melded into the ground so you cannot lift it off easily but will have to scrape it off, bit by worn bit. The smell of decay pervades everything it does, so even if it does something good, we are unable to discern it.
On the other hand, there is something vivacious, fresh and attractive taking place at the Stanford 20/20 tournament. The tournament, at the quarter-final stage, is generating interest because everything about it sparkles. Beautiful grounds constantly bathed in light, gigantic screens with awesome definition, music, surround-sound commentary, all this amidst the amenities of a full-blooded cricket ground.
In this environment cricket legends mingle easily with spectators, signing autographs and shaking hands. Regional teams are sending up their hopefuls determined to make a good showing of it as they vie for grand prizes.
In coloured uniforms and black bats, it has been a showcase of talent we might never have seen. So far, fingers have been counting off at least seven names that have caught the eye. By tournament's end there is bound to be a team's worth of naturally talented players and a lot more whose skills could be developed.
This tournament oozes a particularly infectious energy: the energy of youth, the energy of a vision materialising and the raw energy of possibility. Its gloss comes from the obvious wealth of the organiser, who has spared nothing to pull off a truly entertaining spectacle. It has tremendous potential to be the site of a new kind of West Indies cricket.
The grounds are extremely accommodating to families, and the young people have been there in droves. The players, whether fuelled by competitiveness born of national pride or interest in taking home big purses, have played exciting cricket.
The challenge is to extract these positive elements, to look for the qualities that 20/20 develops and find ways to incorporate them into overall cricket programmes.
It calls for a rethinking of what we consider to be West Indies cricket. It calls for a consciousness that can seize the moment for what it is: a threshold for a new cricketing ethos in the region.
Juxtapose these two aspects of West Indies cricket: a WICB mired in morass that cannot seem to lift itself out of constant crisis, and a brand-new driving force behind cricket.
The conceptual framework behind this cricket may have emanated from Allen Stanford, but he has been shrewd enough to allow it to be guided by the 14 cricket legends who make up his board.
Watching how this tournament has unfurled so similarly to the Kerry Packer World Series Cricket in the 1970s, and knowing how that changed cricket forever, one wonders if this is one of those moments in cricket that has the potential to be the catalyst for an equally important change.
We have seen how the West Indies Cricket Board has managed regional cricket for the past 80 years; we are now witnessing another approach to building cricket.
Maybe it is time to go for broke ? we already have nothing more to lose.
* This column is republished with permission from the NATION newspaper in Barbados where it first appeared.