Selectors Need to Become Scouts
Mon, Sep 18, '06
During the rain-infected match between India and Australia on Saturday, the radio station filled time with a Tony Cozier-led discussion involving Sir Everton Weekes and the late Sir Clyde Walcott. It was as entertaining as it was informative, and it set me thinking again of the tremendous value of exposure to such minds.
There is something beautifully instructive in listening to a master of any game discussing its various dimensions. When they tell it, complicated situations seem to dissolve into the clearest and simplest thing in the world. That is one of the qualities of mastery, isn't it? The ability to create an illusion of effortlessness in the way they handle complex and difficult situations. They simply make it seem so easy.
Do you adjust your technique for the faster ball? Sir Clyde was asked. His deadpan response: I just don't go on the front foot.
It was absolutely riveting to hear him describe his time spent in then British Guiana, coaching, discovering and illuminating a whole sheaf of talented players for the world to see. How casually he described the visits, the endless rounds of estates to scrutinise conditions and players and make recommendations for their improvement! One could easily forget the vastness of Guyana and the fairly archaic modes of transportation of his time as he makes light of what must have been an arduous task.
It makes one realise the level of commitment he felt towards the development of the game.
This consistent exploration yielded richly for West Indies cricket as a whole and one needs not remind of the barrel of players like Kanhai, Gibbs, Butcher, Lloyd and so on, who emerged out of this period, the richer no doubt, for their exposure to Sir Clyde.
That thoroughness seems to have fallen off, and seems to be at the heart of the new mandate of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to have its Cricket Committee, chaired by Clive Lloyd, review the terms of reference of the Selection Committee. The Cricket Committee has been asked to review the processes and procedures that currently exist for the selectors, and to make recommendations based on interviews and discussions with the selectors.
It seems that one of the issues fuelling this fresh mandate is the feeling that selectors, who are on retainers, are not getting out sufficiently to see players in their natural environments. Whether or not the selectors will be peeved by this attempt to pull up their socks is another matter entirely.
In recent times there have been widespread complaints about a scarcity of young talent. Fast bowlers particularly have been singled out as a dying West Indian breed. Given what had been exposed in such heartwarming abundance at the recent Stanford 20/20 regional tournament, we can be reassured that it is not that the naturals are not out there, it is just that they have remained out of sight.
I am not saying that there is a bountiful harvest of gifted cricketers just waiting out there to be plucked, but it seems that there are many young athletes who could do with some training and nurturing not only to feed whatever natural talents they might have, but to provide them with some encouragement to develop themselves as sportspeople.
If we are not doing enough to find them, they will lose interest. Face it, cricket is not a game without expense. It costs a lot of money to make the move from backyard cricket to the point where you need gear and other equipment. Not too many youngsters can find resources to pursue it without some kind of institutional help.
Selectors need to get out and scout around and intervene where necessary. Instead of considering it a burdensome aspect of their portfolios, it might be good to look at it through Walcottian eyes, seeing something akin to a divine role: changing lives and destinies for the better.
* This column is republished with permission from the NATION newspaper in Barbados where it first appeared.