How Much Longer?

Our recent submission to New Zealand in the NatWest final has once again sent the die-hard West Indian cricket fans into an all too familiar emotionally distressing tail spin. Our cricketers flattered to deceive when they comfortably defeated the English cricket team (drawn from a population base 29.7 million) only to embarrassingly and, some may say predictably, capitulate to New Zealand's ODI cricket team (drawn from a population base less than 3.8 million), all within the space of less than a week.

In recent years one thing is certain re the West Indies cricket team: They are consistently inconsistent. Our recent on-the-field record seems to suggest that our current West Indies cricket team is incapable of putting together a string of good performances. Why?

As a conscientious follower of West Indies cricket, I find myself asking the following questions: How many more defeats and sub-par performances are we as West Indian fans expected to swallow? How long can West Indies cricket fans be taken for granted by our very own cricketers?

I am absolutely fed up with those apologist who asks us to "be patient", or say "the boys need your support more than ever now", or for that matter the quixotic who prognosticate, "it can only get better from here". You want us to bet?

As a die-hard West Indies cricket fan I must admit that I am exasperated, my patience has worn thin, I am fuming and it is high time those in charge be held responsible for the "pappy show" that West Indies cricket has become.

Just in case the West Indies Cricket Board and our cricketers need to be reminded: The West Indies cricket team is the laughing stock of the cricketing world, and quite rightly so.

We the loyal fans of West Indies cricket have had enough. Each of us, in our respective careers, are expected to be fully accountable for our actions or lack thereof; and our West Indies cricket team, its cricketers, coaches, selectors and administrators are no exceptions to this tenet.

The truth be told, with the dilapidated state of West Indies cricket, our current cricketers, their coaches, their managers, their selectors and the WICB politburo are, by their actions or lack thereof, endangering the bedrock of West Indies' cricket by:

• Alienating West Indies' cricket fair weather supporters:

  With approximately 6 million people living in the Anglophone Caribbean the numbers of people who are true die-hard supporters of West Indies cricket are relatively few, so few that I do not believe that they are capable, by themselves, of single handedly and consistently filling any of the West Indies' international cricket grounds. The fact of the matter is that West Indies cricket needs its fair weather fans, now more so than ever, to help it become financially viable. And may I add that even with such support West Indies cricket, as an entity, will still have a difficult time making their financial ends meet.

• Kill advertising interest:

  No one backs a perennial looser. The traditional and the more recent corporate sponsors of West Indies cricket, sooner rather than later, are not going to see West Indies cricket as a means of reaching a wider cross-section of West Indians. Don't be surprised that within the proximate future West Indies cricket would no longer be able to command the premium, re advertising dollars, which they were capable of demanding in the not so distant past.

• Killing television coverage:

  Without sponsorship, it becomes more difficult for local television stations, in the respective territories, to offer live and free cricket coverage to their viewing audience. Without live cricket coverage there will inevitably be a further fall-off in the interest in West Indies cricket.

• Negatively impacting on the island economies:

  Tourism (Hotel, taxi, restaurants, bars, etc.), head taxes, the vendors found around the cricket ground, supermarkets, souvenir shops, etc. can realistically suffer because of the increasing unattractiveness of West Indies cricket.

• Drying up our recruitment drive:

  In order for West Indies cricket to survive it needs to continue to attract the youth of the region to the game. Unfortunately no West Indian youngster, under the age of 12, is able to recall a single West Indies team that is capable of consistently knocking over all and sundry within its wake. The recent performances of the West Indies cricket team are likely to undermine the self-belief of any youngster who is aspiring to a place on the senior West Indies team. The consequence of such can be catastrophic to the future of West Indies cricket.

• Reducing revenues from overseas tours:

  With the West Indies team at the last rung, compared to the established teams in international cricket, we are no longer the attraction that we once used to be. Consequentially, other international cricket boards are only offering us truncated tests and ODI itineraries, a situation that was certainly unheard of up to 6 years ago.

• Increasing financial pressure on the respective local and regional cricket boards:

  With all of the above negative mitigating factors dogging West Indies cricket, all of the West Indian cricket boards, inclusive of the territorial boards and the WICB, are going to come under increasing financial pressure whilst attempting to meet their respective recurrent and capital expenditures.

Unfortunately far too many West Indies cricket fans and followers have a groupie mentality and are incapable of one iota of objectivity when it comes to "their boy(s)" on the field or beyond the boundary. Hence, they often scream and shout to high heaven, from their respective bully pulpits, whenever someone may justifiably call for the head of their "favorite son(s) of the soil". Some of these very fanatics, and they know who they are, must bear some of the responsibility for the quandary that West Indies cricket finds itself in. These non-rationale groupies have inadvertently ensured that West Indies cricket remains mired in its critical state of health.

Those who have been entrusted with the responsibility of directly managing this sad state of affairs seem ambivalent at best, and unqualified or incapable at worst, of administering the necessary antidote that would facilitate a timely turnaround in the fortunes of West Indies cricket. It certainly goes against the grain of a sound business or administrative principle to keep a management team in place, whose productivity is more often than not way below par. No one connected at any level to West Indies cricket should be beyond reproach, in that all those who have stepped up to the plate re West Indies cricket MUST accept responsibility for the prevailing sad state of affairs of West Indies cricket.

In order for West Indies cricket to survive many heads will need to roll. The time for such a shake down is NOW. With World Cup 2007 less than 3 years away we must identify and rectify the surmountable issues that encumber the renaissance of West Indies' cricket. Without such wholesale changes all we can realistically expect for WC 2007 is a consistently inconsistent West Indies cricket team which continues to flatter to deceive. But then again, why worry for if the West Indies were to fail to get past the first round of WC 2007, they will only be playing true to current form.

* C. Malcolm Grant is a disillusioned West Indies cricket fan based in Barbados.