Lip-Service and Sleepless Nights

I know you did not enjoy the cricket you saw on TV last week. It was just too early in the morning to get upset. However, upset our West Indies players made us. Yet again.

But forget the mess in Mumbai for a minute. Weren?t you glad to still have the opportunity to see it with your own sleepy, despairing eyes? I was. But I also remember how we in this place almost didn?t get to see a ball. It was not a new story. Money was tight, the advertisers weren?t biting and a blackout was looming.

But unlike the Sri Lanka series of last year, there was a last-minute reprieve. Somehow, the public outcry that CCN TV6 general manager Shida Bolai admitted helped to tip the scales this time, did not do the trick back then.

Such uncertainty. For a game that supposedly means so much to people in this region, cricket still gets the bastard?s treatment.

The regional first-class tournament is struggling to keep its sponsor or find a new one. Past players are now thinking worriedly about the money they thought had been wisely secured in the West Indies Cricket Board?s Players Provident Fund, but which now seems to be as safe as Enron stocks. Now the WICB are also looking for a new CEO.

I say again, the seeming chaos and state of flux in the boardroom cannot neatly be separated from the slackness on the field.

The grassing of straightforward chances, the mental wilting in the blazing Indian sun, and Chris Gayle?s bull-headed hitting against the off-spinner?s turn amount to a lack of thought, a lack of heart, preparation inadequate in nearly all its aspects.

These problems are extensions of the ones WICB president Wes Hall finds himself trying to iron out at headquarters.

President Wes? is a most difficult task. His passion and irrepressible charm alone cannot save the day. He needs help, institutional support of the kind that only governments can give.

But I?m not just thinking about someone writing a big cheque and shaking a hand.

Let me illustrate with an example from Spanish football. Real Madrid are the heavy rollers of the world club game because they have, among others, Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo.

But last year, when current club president Florentino Perez took over, the Madrilenos were in the red. Sone ?173 million in the red even before they bought Figo. But today, they are healthily in the black because of a deal struck with the Madrid authorities.

It involved selling 20 per cent of the land on which the club?s training ground is housed - land they had been given three decades ago?for ?245 million and then in the end giving the remaining 80 per cent back to the city council.

The deal allowed Real to wipe out their debt. The fact that the club is a member-owned organisation, rather than a sporting society which can raise cash through shareholders, helped make the deal possible.

Why do I raise this? Well, legalities aside, this bailout of Real Madrid was made possible because the local government did not see the nine-time European Cup winners as just another team.

Madrid are considered a Spanish treasure, as precious as the art of Picasso, as indigenous as the running of the bulls. Spain will not contemplate the failure of the mighty Real.

What about us? Does West Indies cricket mean enough to our societies that we will not allow it to crash and burn? Not on the evidence of the past seven years in which the regional team has suffered staggering setbacks on and off the field.

If lip-service is not to bury our cricket permanently, then the game needs real support. There can be no swift bailout for the problems we face. Money trouble is just a part of it.

But, apart from providing moral backing, governments, big business, big people can help in tangible ways.

If they really care, then seeing the West Indies on TV will be a given every time.

If they really care, the Ravi Rampauls and Martin Nurses in these islands will get all the care and nurturing they need.

If they really care, then in times to come, West Indies cricket will not cause us so many sleepless nights.

* Garth Wattley is a Trinidad-based sports journalist. This column first appeared in the Trinidad Express.