Inadvertent or Not, It Must Stop
A couple of weeks ago, at the press conference announcing the return of Brian Lara as captain of the West Indies team and the agreement between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA), WICB president Ken Gordon repeatedly addressed the assembled media as "Gentlemen".
Although I was not one, there were female journalists there, and they asked questions of him. Only once though, did Mr Gordon acknowledge their presence. I am sure this was not a deliberate slight, but one arising from the long and erroneous assumption that cricket was men's business and that only male journalists covered it.
Relevantly too, when the former WICB president, Wes Hall, spoke of the need to restructure the board, he omitted representation for women's cricket. That too, I take as an oversight, as I do not believe either leader would deliberately want to propagate a policy of female exclusion.
However, the fact that both men could make such slips underscores the need for voices on behalf of women at the policy-making level. It speaks of their absence from the consciousness of the people who determine their role in the sport. Whether this absence is malevolent or inadvertent is irrelevant. It must stop.
At a recent symposium on cricket in Trinidad, I spoke to journalists about this absence and was asked whether I had considered covering women's cricket. It was a question that had missed the point I was trying to make, which was that the media too needed to see women's cricket as part of the whole ? as much cricket as any other kind. That all cricket, whether played by male, blind, physically challenged or female cricketers, should be covered by journalists who routinely covered sport. The pigeon-holing only provides more invisibility from the mainstream consciousness and actively hampers the growth of the sport in a holistic manner.
It is why I also believe that the WICB has a responsibility to include someone to represent women's cricket at the level of its directors because however well-meaning the current board members might be, their actions betray obliviousness to its development.
This brings me to a point I want to raise about the structure of the WICB. The WICB should not feel exempt from the principle of good, diligent, professionally sound governance. Its directors should be expected to bring some expertise to the table.
The need for proper corporate governance has seen the rise of training for board members to enable them to manage the affairs of their firms with due diligence and care. Boards are sponsoring seminars and workshops for their directors to ensure that they are up to speed on matters they would need to decide on the company's behalf.
In the event that the board is so restructured as to have one director representing each territory instead of two, the representative should have some area of expertise that would be beneficial to deliberations and policy formation. Consideration should be given to areas such as industrial relations, finance, law, human resources, culture, education, and management.
It goes without saying that the bond to hold these elements together should be cricket. Indeed, cricket and its development should be central to all the parties who serve on the board.
Whether the WICB chooses to restructure itself or not, it remains critical that it approaches its responsibility to West Indies cricket with diligence, responsibility and, since it has practically disregarded the argument that the care West Indians feel entitles them to accountability, it should feel a new awareness that a lot of money has now been invested in its projects, and that puts a new onus on them to deliver.
* This column is republished with permission from the NATION newspaper in Barbados where it first appeared.