WICB Committing Suicide
The West Indies will be hosts to South Africa and Pakistan in the 2005 Home series which starts next March. That is the good news! The team will play four Tests and five ODIs against South Africa and two Tests and three ODIs against Pakistan. The International season begins with the arrival of South Africa on March 25 for a nearly two-month long tour, which ends on May 16. Pakistan arrives on May 8 and departs the Caribbean on June 8.
Still more good news, can it get any better than this, two tough opponents in 2005!. But no, it can and does get worse!
Pakistan will not play in either Trinidad and Tobago or Guyana!
Let me repeat this, a team from the sub continent, a country full of Muslims, will not play any cricket in Guyana or Trinidad and Tobago!
What is in the minds of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Marketing committee?. Don't they realize the high marketability and attractiveness of Pakistan to Trinidad and Tobago, as well as to Guyana?
Imagine the man in charge of the Marketing of West Indies Cricket is a Trinidadian. Darren Millien, who is the WICB's chief marketing executive, failed to secure a sponsor for this year's regional one-day tournament and clearly he has not been schooled enough by his peers in Trinidad, or perhaps it is the fact that at Fatima College, he did not learn about demography in the region.
Instead what we have is that Barbados, St Lucia, St Vincent and Jamaica will host these multi talented and erratic cricketers. Can you imagine the following and support at the Queens Park Oval and Bourda for Shoaib Akhtar, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Yousuf Youhana, Imran Farhat and others. It goes beyond stating that the WICB have yet again made a blunder and they should haul Millien and his bunch of cohorts in front of a tribunal and sentence him to deck hand time on the Titanic.
This could not ever happen under the decisive watch of former WICB marketing brain Chris Dehring. It goes without saying that the World Cup 2007 committee's gain is a major loss to the marketing of West Indies cricket.
The theory that there is a need to spread the international matches sounds fair but we have to deal with reality and the fact that the WICB have already stated that they expect profits in 2005 to be lower than 2004 because of the decrease in revenue based on the lack of Television appeal by the two touring teams to the Caribbean in 2005.
If this is true, and it seems questionable at best, then why not try to make a small profit at the turnstiles and therefore play matches where crowd support is guaranteed? To not do this is to marginalize many because a few men believe they are being fair. They are are committing cricket suicide.
Also, if equal distribution of matches is the objective, the fact that Trinidad and Tobago will stage the 2nd test match and two one dayers against South Africa, and Guyana, the first test against South Africa, may allow the fallacy that these two countries have got their full share already.
But all of that is faulty, because Barbados will host the 3rd test of the South African series and one South African one dayer, and Jamaica a one dayer in the South African series. Additionally, Antigua have the South African fourth test and the three day warm up matches with Pakistan. Can anyone say that crowds will travel from abroad to these islands to watch these matches; certainly a professional examination of the populace in each island would have been better.
It is clear that the Pakistan team would have received a lot of support in Trinidad and Guyana, so perhaps it is that the WICB did not want our players to find themselves on the wrong side of local support, and decided to omit the countries that would support Pakistan. Perhaps there is a belief in the boardroom of the WICB that too much support away from home would inspire Pakistan, and deflate the West Indies team. If that was the myopic thinking of the WICB, then we are in for a long road back in Test cricket.
It is no surprise that people have lost faith in the decisions of the West Indies Cricket Board because, for every bad decision, there is a bigger bad decision lurking on the inside ready to come out.
The problem is that the two losers here are the players and the public. We in the West Indies have been cursed by poor planning from the marketing department of the WICB. Let us hope that in time the WICB will learn that efficient decision making is critical to the progress of any organization, especially one that intends to be held accountable as a corporation.
* Andre Baptiste is a popular radio personality in Trinidad & Tobago. He writes a weekly column in the Trinidad Newsday newspaper.