Captain, The Ship Has Sunk
"Captain, the ship is sinking. Captain, the seas are rough. Shall we abandon ship? Or shall we stay on it. And perish slow? We don?t know. Captain you tell me what to do." - (Gypsy, 1986)
Like the famous Titanic, West Indies cricket has sunk to the seabed of world cricket.
Since 1995, the game in the Caribbean has hit iceberg upon iceberg with no apparent end in sight. Once an institution of excellence envied the world over, West Indies cricket has become the laughing stock. While fans, friends and well wishers hang their heads in shame questioning how much lower can it sink, the main stakeholders are locked in a tense battle over players' image rights, seemingly oblivious to the ruins that is laid waste.
While the team in Sri Lanka is being reduced to just another team in the Tri-nation series, all appears to be well at Factory Road. Or is it? After going to great lengths and utilizing none other than Sir Garfield Sobers to convince the cricketing public that the Digicel deal is "the best thing to happen to West Indies cricket in a long time," we see a joint release from the Board and its sponsor clarifying the figures of the sponsorship contract.
Let me interject here that I am no financial guru but really, that clarification has raised more questions than it provides clarification. What really is the value of the sponsorship deal? Is it $20m, $18.75m or what?
This recent action is the epitome of the inconsistency and incompetence that has characterized our cricket administration in the last decade. How can you holler out like the proverbial town crier that you have inked a deal worth $20m only for a year later to be clarifying the initial sum and the subsequent figures posited by your own CEO?
The WICB must use this opportunity to clean house and reinvent itself. As a first step to resolving the current impasse it must request, make that demand, the resignation of Roger Braithwaite with immediate effect. His actions and utterances in the recent past have done the WICB no favors and have won them little support in the public arena. As administrators, the greater burden rest with them to salvage what is left of our cricket and chart the way forward.
The WICB must go back to the negotiating table without Braithwaite and seek to iron out its issues with the players' association. It should also submit the Digicel contract to arbitration and let the chips fall where they may. WIPA, for its part must be willing to temper its hard line in the pursuit of compromise and in the interest of West Indies cricket.
What West Indies cricket needs is for its stakeholders to begin to act in a manner which allows it to put its best foot forward. Our cricket needs investment in both development and infrastructure. We need men and women whose passion is to see the game in the region restore it to the dizzying heights it climbed in the 1980s.
The Board need to respect its players and one area where it can act immediately is by paying the players on time, for by its own action of not making good on its promises it is saying to the players commitment is not important. The Board must become professional in its dealings with the players, as only then can it demand professionalism from the said players.
A new Board president will be selected soon, it is my sincere hope that he will have the stomach to clean house and chart a course that will help the "dry bones? of West Indies cricket to once again live. Though hope is not a plan, we can?t do much else.