WICB Screw-Up Underscores Amateurism

Monday's comedic error regarding the release of the West Indies ODI team without Shiv Chanderpaul's name is now being blamed on Zorol Barthley's handwriting.

Derrick Nicholas, the WICB's cricket operations officer who is tasked with writing and distributing the board's press releases, told Tony Cozier that he received a handwritten note from Barthley (his immediate superior) that had the name C-Paul, which he (Nicholas) interpreted as C-Baugh. As unbelievable as that sounds, there's more to this latest bit of amateurism from the folks at Factory Road in Antigua.

Over in South Africa, the shoddy nature of the announcement was also creating ripples. A senior team official told CaribbeanCricket.com that both Chanderpaul and Baugh learnt of the screw-up through the original -- and erroneous -- media report. Even team manager Ricky Skerritt first learnt of the composition of the team when reporters contacted him to ask about reasons for Chanderpaul's omission.

According to the official, chief selector Viv Richards usually makes a phone call to notify the WICB (Barthley) of the composition of the team. This was confirmed in Nicholas's explanation to Tony Cozier, which was published in three Caribbean newspapers on Tuesday. "When Zorol Barthley passed the team on to me after he spoke to chairman of selectors on the phone from South Africa, it was hand-written and had the name C-Paul which I interpreted as C-Baugh..."Immediately the error was pointed out, I sent out the correction," Nicholas said.

That a WICB staffer at the cricket operations level would release a team without one of the most valuable players and not ask for immediate clarification is beyond comprehension. That Barthley would be passing (illegible?)handwritten notes to Nicholas is further confirmation of the slapdash way the game is being administered in the region. In addition, it has negative ramifications for the morale of the touring side, especially when players get their news from media leaks.

"The worst part is that it is not unusual for players to learn of their selection or dropping via the media as happened with Shiv today. But this is how the cricket experts seem to want to keep it," said one official, who declined to be identified.

But, it is nothing new for the WICB's public relations operations. Before Nicholas, the board's press releases were written and distributed by the Barbados-based Saunders-Franklyn Associates, a PR firm that made a habit of issuing corrections to erroneous information in WICB press releases.

One that comes to mind was the announcement from Saunders-Franklyn that senior selector Gordon Greenidge was "seconded" to help Bangladesh to prepare for the World Cup competition last year. Based on that information, CaribbeanCricket.com published an editorial calling for Greenidge's resignation and chided the board for a secondment policy that made no sense. Immediately after, Saunders-Franklyn issued a correction to explain that "Greenidge has made himself available to help Bangladesh prepare for the [World Cup] competition."

Like Nicholas, Saunders-Franklyn has also been guilty of exposing the entire WICB mailing list in e-mail announcements, a major taboo in public relations circles due to the privacy ramifications. And that's not even counting the incorrect spelling of players' names, typographical and factual errors that are a staple of WICB press releases.

The WICB has advertised for a Communications Manager to take responsibility for announcements and dealings with the media and applicants have ranged from senior cricket writers around the Caribbean to former WICB executives and ex-West Indies players.

But, at this stage, it is clear that the board needs much more than a communications manager if the battered image of the WICB is to be restored. The official WICB Web site is the epitome of incompetence with simple things like player bios containing wrong information and mismatched photographs.

And we're not even going to rehash the details of the administrative blunder that knocked the WICB Web site offline, all because someone forgot to renew the registration for the site address.

The carelessness and ineptitude is rampant and no one seems to care. Without a doubt, the Nicholas/Barthley handwriting calamity will be repeated in very near future because of the absence of simple checks-and-balances.

And, because it involves the public face of West Indies cricket, it makes all West Indians look bad.