The Independent Voice of West Indies Cricket
Since June last year, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has withheld -- but never deposited -- the percentage of West Indies cricketers' match fees that is supposed to go towards the Provident Fund.
According to a report in the Trinidad Express, it was only after enquiries by the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) that the WICB issued "payment instructions" its bank for the transfer of Provident Fund contributions for the players.
The first Test was a breath of fresh air for West Indian fans as the home team dominated South Africa at Bourda. The return of Lara, Sarwan and Gayle was supposed to make things even better but, alas, it was the same old story with disappointing losses in both the second and third Test matches.
To try to explain away the team?s fine performance in the first test, solely, on the notion that Bourda is a batting paradise, or that South Africa was short on practice, is to discount a splendid all round team effort. To be sure, it has been quite some time since the West Indies team displayed such an admirable sense of professionalism and esprit de corps.
Phallic symbolism abounded in the West Indies second loss in this Test series. Played out before largely empty seats, from the omnipresent "Bigger and Better" slogan of Digicel to the first streaker ever to grace the hallowed turf of the Kensington Oval in its 110-year history, West Indies cricket seems to be one cock-up after another.
Meanwhile, in the other sport being carried on out in the middle, the ineptness and deficiencies of the West Indies with both bat and ball were being laid as bare as the strippers butt by the South Africans.
While sifting through some documents recently, I came across a letter I had written to a newspaper in Grenada where I was living at the time. The year was 2000 and I had just returned from watching the West Indies play, or rather lose, in England...again.
It's funny. In five years, things haven't changed. The letter read as follows...
Former chairman of the West Indies cricket selection panel, Michael Findlay, said yesterday that during his tenure as a regional selector, he received no direct interference from the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
However, the former Windies wicket-keeper/batsman said that there were two occasions on which then president of the WICB, Pat Rousseau wrote him on matters of selection.