Not so long ago it was all President Julian Hunte's fault. Now it's all President Dave Cameron's fault. Now it's the fault of too much 'slam-bam-thank-you-madam' T20 cricket. Before, it was the influence of North American sports like basketball. Before that it was the end of exposure to English county cricket. Always it has been "the Board's fault". Yawn.

But truth will out. Whatever the merits of the above explanations for the shocking demise of West Indies cricket over the past 25 years, the plain, unvarnished truth, as revealed by the latest shocking innings and 209 runs defeat by England in three days at Birmingham, is that we now have a gang that "can't bat, can't bowl, can't field, can't captain, can't coach and can't select". Posters, hug that up and weep.

Certainly, as with any organization, the buck stops with the president in the corner office on the top floor, even if the immediate proximate cause of the demise is the surly, incompetent receptionist on the ground floor.

Dave Cameron must now read The Riot Act to all and sundry and fix the problem now. Right now. Otherwise, the rest of this series will see the total meltdown of our cricket as England will show no mercy.

Jarrod Kimber of ESPN's Cricinfo West Indies' legacy left in the hands of schoolboys sums up what I have been saying for a long time:

"Failing to run hard. Poking at wide ones. Not moving one's feet. Hands in pockets as the ball is bowled. Not backing up. Not enough singles. Fielders too deep. Running down the middle of the wicket. No control over line. Playing across the line when it's swinging. No diving to stop boundaries. Balls going through legs. Boundary balls served to order. Lifeless fielding. New ball not taken. Rash shots. Impatient bowling. Terrible techniques. Wasting the new ball."

That is the not even a complete list of the mistakes made in just three days.

Yes, but....

Can these guys actually learn? Is there a culture of "teach me" among the West Indies' team or the teams coming through?

Larr once said the Roger Harper lamented the fact that these guys were coming in to the senior team not knowing the basics. Clearly the problem is far far bigger than the West Indies coach of the month.

At what point do the players take responsibility for their own failures? When do they stop and read this article, or others like this one and take matters into their own hands? Are they content to just sit in the bus while it drives down the side of the hill?

I fully agree that that WICB or CWI or whatever it's next to be rebranded as is as useless as tits on a bull. Far too many ppl are eating a free meal off this thing. End it.

BUT... the players are accepting this. Do not tell me that Stuart Law or Phil Simmons or.... (list too long to enter here) were all incompetent coaches. That's just stupid.

I remember visiting Commie in Dominica and watching Darren Sammy do throwdowns while the rest of the team sat in the shade and jeered him. I remember two famous West Indies fast bowlers being told to f-off when they went down to give advice after a caning in Barbados.

Yeah... there are lots of problems, but coaching is likely the absolute least of them.

In reply to Arawak

In reply to Drapsey

jocularity has its place. the trick is to know when

In reply to sudden

Thanks for the good advice, sudden. I was expecting to be ignored.

In reply to Drapsey

you have been. i am only offering advice.


do you have anything to add to Arawak's postulation?

The Regional retainer contracts isn't working, they need to consider making changes to that, reduce it to 60 contracts or suggest a quota for contracts to be given to U-23s.

The HPC is apparently in no comparison to facilities other teams have so that needs investment too.

In reply to Drapsey

In reply to Arawak

In reply to Kay

Players ultimately must accept some responsibility but the problems are much bigger and have been discussed here over and over.
It takes a village as the old saying goes. Everyone must be involved. The WICBandits own no facilities but call all the shots and arrogantly refuse to deal with the stakeholder governments. So no proper pitches, no real sustained developmental programme and no PR to get the youth involved.
The Bandits treat the players with scant respect and disdain and kick them out at a whim. No dissatisfied employee will function and the players are employees of the Bandits.
And the selectors are answerable to no one. For instance players cannot make it into their national team but get picked for West Indies. And the beat goes on......

Leadership/management must take responsibility for failure in the final analysis.

In reply to Arawak

In reply to WICFan... why is that, I would suggest, lack of monitoring. Appraisals are to be done every six months. Show me what you have been doing, do you warrant a renewing of contract?

In reply to bobby

In reply to Kay

In reply to Kay

In reply to Kay

Yes. I agree. They are all bandits, from Guyana to Jamaica and everything in between. And all the fans do is chat and complain but do not get involved and try to make meaningful change. We are all to blame.

In reply to camos

It never ceases to amaze me that people particularly in the Media are
perpetually adept at covering the Asses of those in the governance of
West Indies Cricket .

The very fact that they consistently
refuse to understand that the Major
Problem with Cricket in the Region is
due to the gross incompetence of the
Worst International Cricket Board in the Commonwealth .

Let me again repeat these freaking Facts :

OUR PLAYERS ARE PLAYING LESS CRICKET

THAN THEIR OPPONENTS .


THE STANDARD OF CRICKET IN THE REGION

IS BELOW THAT OF THE TOP TEAMS IN

INTERNATIONAL CRICKET .


WHAT HAS THE WICBC/CWI PUT IN PLACE

NOW THAT THE HPC IS DEAD ????????????

I submit that these must be asked
by those who claim to be Sports Journalists before making scathing remarks about the Players .

Those who fail to do that in my opinion cannot be considered as credible Sports Journalists .

The Charlatans , in the Media relish
being critical of the Players , because the Players have no power , while excusing those who are responsible for the competitiveness
of Our Players .

For many years now , this has been the modus operandi of most of the Faux Journalists . Completely ignoring the fact that THEY also must
bear some responsibility for the state of West Indies Cricket ;Whether
they like it or not .

Cricket in the Region would be much
more advanced if those who call themselves Sports Journalists were
Critical of the WICBC/CWI .

VERY FEW OF THEM HAVE EVER WRITTEN OR

SPOKEN OF THE FACT THAT ALL THE

VARIOUS REPORTS THE WICBC/CWI

COMMISSIONED IT HAS BLUNTLY REFUSED

TO TAKE ON BOARD THE RECOMMENDATIONS

OF THOSE REPORTS .

Obviously then , most of the Sports Journalists in the Region are complicit with the WICBC/CWI regarding the State of Cricket in the Region .

In reply to Arawak

This mess we are in is totally the WICB's fault. None of the directors deserve to be there and none will act until they are hit in the pocket. So as painful as it is this shit must grind on until everything blows up completely, until every sponsor leaves us until we lose both ODI and Test status then maybe from the ashes something could rise up.

In reply to natty_forever

Good points made, I don't know what the retainer contracts are worth, but throwing money at these guys and expecting the results to improve doesn't work.

As I said, reduce the number of retainers to 10 per Regional side, that way there is competition for these retainers,

You could award a further 10 Development Retainers for guys under the age of 21 to while they develop and encourage them to continue a career in cricket, these guys would be recommended by the Regional Boards with development trials and quarterly appraisals.

Cutting Retainers from 90 to 70 should be frowned upon, it should be seen as rewarded the best at there job.

Any money saved should go towards improving facilities at the HPC, arranging workshops for groundsmen, salaries for playing tests etc.

In reply to camos

In reply to Arawak

In reply to Arawak

In reply to camos
The way forward is to implement a player development program but limit it by at first selecting "talented" U15 players carefully watch them throughout the developmental process ie work habits, skills/weakness instruction application, attention to coaching advice, mental fortitude etc. Drop the ones who lack those traits and replace them accordingly over a 5 year period and apply same as they move up the age ranks to become 20-22 year olds and you may yet have 2 dozen cricketers disciplined in all facets of the game. The successful cricketers of the past had self discipline, and all told about working on weaknesses locally and in County cricket.
You cant be disciplined when you and the coaches sit down and discuss and plan tactics, and you simply ignore many of those while your opponent applies much of it against you. That says a lot right there. Its like a Teacher or Prof telling you prep from Chapters 5 to 10 all the questions will come from that and you opt to study 1 to 5 or 10 to 15 because you just feel some will come from there. The turn around and blame all else but yourself.

In reply to Scar

the head coach position is overrated, that money should spent on three regional coaches to help promising school boys.

One of the issues is that the team needs to be prepared better, maybe the Coaches are not giving good motivational speeches before the Test match.

PROPER PREPARATION PREVENTS

PISS POOR PERFORMANCES .

Now that being the case , the Question
is this :

HOW ARE OUR PLAYERS PREPARED TO BE

FULLY COMPETITIVE IN THE INTERNATIONAL

CRICKET ARENA ??????

How many Coaches are employed to iron
out the faults & Flaws of Young Promising Players ?????

IN THE INTERNATIONAL CRICKET ARENA

THE STARK FACT IS THAT OUR PLAYERS

ARE PLAYING LESS CRICKET THAN THEIR

OPPONENTS . THIS FREAKING ISSUE TO

MY KNOWLEDGE HAS NEVER EVER BEEN

ADEQUATELY ADDRESSED .

Yet despite this freaking Fact , I
find it sad that most people train
their anger at only the Players , completely oblivious of the fact that
If the Flaws of Youngsters are not adequately addressed , they will never ever reach their True Potential .
It is only People in this Forum steeped in Backward Thinking will place all the blame on the Players .

Let me once again state , that having 1 or 2 week Camps is totally inadequate . Are Coaches employed at
those Camps ???

If they are not employed then the Camps are somewhat meaningless . I
will always maintain that Former Great Players must be employed as Coaches to help Youngsters in getting rid of their flaws & Faults .

It it was due to the fact that Former Great Players were employed in the shortest version of the game , that
made Our Players win 2 consecutive World Cups in this Format of the game .
It seems that this fact has been cast aside , despite those Former Great Players Success in making their Players skills finely honed , and were imbued with Supreme Confidence
to get to the Top .

IF WE WANT OUR PLAYERS TO BE FULLY

COMPETITIVE THEN FORMER GREAT PLAYERS

MUST BE EMPLOYED TO REMOVE THEIR

FLAWS . IT IS THAT FREAKING SIMPLE .

In reply to Arawak

The problem is with the roots and not always with the fruits. If we analyze the discrepancy of players and rightly so, it's like a fruit on the tree you will watch from green, look at its growth and development and when full/mature and ripe you will pick it. There is a process for this to happen, a seed has to be planted, healthy soil, fertilizer, water and sunlight is necessary to get that end product.

We have a culture problem in the WI, where everyone feels they are too good to be wrong or corrected and NOT willing to listen, understand, accept and act. We all know what needs to be done and unless the executives at the top accept their deficiencies, they will never act (better pitches, ongoing school/club coaching covering basics and technique, healthy divisional club/regional tournaments for development and selection and fair contracts for those who work hard.

My mom once said if the captain is crooked the crew will be crooked.

"The main problem is at the Top."

In reply to azadtnt

exactly! excellence will never spring from a sea of corruption!

In reply to camos

Is Ja. corrupt?

In reply to Ninetenjack

YOUR ASSESSMENT IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT

Many here relish giving the Big Idiots
a Free Pass regarding their Abysmal Stewardship of Cricket in the Freaking Region .

In reply to azadtnt

I have been telling many in this Forum
what You have stated for 14 freaking Years , yet they persist in their Stupidity .

What is very sad is the fact that those in the Media have the same belief as many here .

As a result not one blasted thing gets done . Ask them why is it that the WICBC/CWI HAVE BLUNTLY REFUSED TO

TO CHANGE ITS 89 YEARS OLD STRUCTURE

DESPITE COMMISSIONING SEVERAL REPORTS

WHICH ARE DISCARDED ; WITHOUT

ACCEPTING THE SALIENT RECOMMENDATIONS

THEY CANNOT ANSWER .

They love being critical of the Players while saying absolutely nothing about those in the Stewardship of West Indies Cricket .Is totally asinine , yet they persist in their utter Stupidity .