Cozier Wants Outside Audit of WICB

Veteran cricket writer Tony Cozier on Sunday issued a call for an outside organisation to assess the workings of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and to recommend instant ways of improvement.

[T]he stage has been reached where action needs to be taken, if only to demonstrate that there are those who are accountable...[T]he woeful performances on the field have their source in the weak and divisive administration off it," Cozier said in a column written after the third Test loss against England in Barbados.

Cozier, who has covered West Indies cricket for print and broadcast media since the 1960s, argued that the mediocre performances on the field is directly connected to the poor administration of the game in the region.

"In 40 years covering West Indies cricket, I have never known the depth of frustration, hopelessness and downright anger that now exists."

"Everyone, it seems, has a ready-made solution but the problems are so deep-seated that there can be no quick fix," Cozier added.

"The fear is that the decline is terminal, that the tentacles of defeatism are as stifling as a love vine and that the West Indies are becoming an irrelevancy at the highest level of the game, consigned, with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, as also-rans to powerhouses Australia and the other more credible Test teams," he argued.

Over the years, as the losses mounted, Cozier said there were desperate attempts to check the slide. "Captains have been changed five times in the last seven years. There have been five different coaches, three managers. The WICB has had three presidents and two chief executives since 2001. It has employed more costly administrative staff that ever. Nothing has worked."

"The attitude and work ethic of players have become notoriously slack, the mediocrity has spread. England have exposed it not only in the Tests but in the side matches against composite teams," he added.

The Barbadian journalist lamented the inability of the WICB and the players' association to broker a deal and implement a contract system that would put them on a permanent payroll, converting them into full-time professionals.