Supporting Clive Lloyd's Candidacy
Very soon, nominations will close for the presidency of the West Indies Cricket Board Inc. (WICB). To date Trinidad has nominated Businessman Ken Gordon for the post while the original candidates for Jamaica and Barbados, Messrs. Pat Rousseau and Tony Marshall, have withdrawn.
There is no nomination for Guyana because its candidate, Clive Lloyd, one of the Region?s most outstanding Captains and cricketers, according to the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB), has so far failed to obtain a seconder from the other territorial boards. Equally strange is that even though the candidates of Barbados and Jamaica have withdrawn, no support seems to be forthcoming for Clive Lloyd or so we are led to believe in Guyana.
What can be the possible reason for this troubling situation? How is it possible that the GCB cannot find a seconder for a West Indian who is lionized and respected the world over? Clive Lloyd has just received two (2) PHDs from prestigious English Universities for his contribution to sport and was recently invited by the BBC to deliver the Colin Cowdrey lectures. True it is that a prophet is not without honour save in his own country but this verges on the ridiculous. As I write this I am trying to exhaust all other arguments before I approach the question of parochialism which is currently squeezing the life out of West Indies cricket.
Not long after Clive Lloyd announced his candidature, elements of the Caribbean press raised the red herring of his not being resident in the Region and that he had failed as a manager and coach of previous West Indian teams. Both arguments can be summarily dispatched. For the life of me I cannot understand how the very press which raised no objection to Bennett King taking over the coaching of the West Indies Team can possibly object to Clive Lloyd?s candidature for the WIBC because he is not resident in the Region. Other minds might be able to fathom this; I cannot.
As far as Lloyd not being successful as a coach or manager, I merely ask: who has been? And so it appears that Mr. Ken Gordon will walk into the Presidency of the WIBC unopposed. I do not think this is good for West Indies cricket.
Mr. Ken Gordon is an elegant and accomplished West Indian. I have even read that he played cricket for his high school. But good as he is and as successful as he has been as a businessman, I doubt whether he is the ideal candidate to rescue our cricket from the coils of failure and decline. The argument goes that as a successful businessman Ken Gordon should be able to pull the board back from bankruptcy and restore some kind of sanity to its affairs and activities. This is a shop worn argument that will not convince anyone.
Remember that Mr. Pat Rousseau had taken over the cricket board in the belief that it was time that West Indies cricket be run as a business. He did not succeed and it is not difficult to determine why this was so. The simple fact is that whether it is Pat Rousseau or Ken Gordon they will have to sell a product that the world needs. That product is West Indies cricket and at the moment it does not look like an attractive commodity. This is the reason, among others, why attendance was so poor during the recent South African and Pakistani tours to the Caribbean. The question therefore is to restore the attraction of the product. Ken Gordon, lacking as he does, an intimate and firm grasp of the intricacies of West Indies cricket, cannot pull this off. Clive Lloyd can, and if given the opportunity, will.
Clive Lloyd has been associated with West Indies cricket for more than a quarter of a century. He knows the ins and outs of the administration as well as the details of the actual game. Clive Lloyd will therefore know better than anyone what has gone wrong and what it will take to fix it. And he has expressed these views repeatedly in great detail in interviews he has given to the Caribbean and English press and recently in a speech he made during the award ceremony held by the West Indies Players Association (WIPA).
Most of all Clive Lloyd will be in the best position to restore the trust and confidence between the players and the administration, the lack of which has bedeviled West Indies cricket over the years and recently brought it to its lowest point. Clive Lloyd will obtain the respect of the current players not only because of his accomplishments on the field but also because of his great inter personal skills. Moreover as a younger man he will have the energy and will to do the work necessary to revive West Indies cricket, assets which I do not think Mr. Gordon possesses at his age.
This is a difficult moment for West Indies cricket. The correct choices should be made. If these are not made and the West Indies continue to lose respect as well as appeal in the cricketing community, then those responsible will have to shoulder responsibility for not ensuring that the right course of action is taken at the right time. And here I include Prime Ministers as well as commentators, sports writers as well as cricket enthusiasts.
In the past respected individuals as well as sportsmen have spoken out in favour of a particular event in West Indies cricket or in support of a respected individual. This was so when less discerning men tried to deny Frank Worrell the captaincy of the West Indies Team. They should do so now and come out in support of Clive Lloyd before it is too late. They should say unequivocally that he is the man for the job and that he can restore West Indies cricket as an attractive product even and particularly as we move into the final period before Cricket World Cup 2007.