Warfare Drags Everything Down
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) knows the logistics of staging an international tournament span complex issues. Availability of teams, venues, accommodation and flights are just part of a picture which includes financial and security arrangements.
Allen Stanford, a newcomer to the business of staging a cricket tournament, is no novice in the business world. His international empire demonstrates his acumen, and the way he has stamped his name on the Antiguan landscape manifests the aggression with which he pursues his interests.
It stretches credulity to imagine Stanford would arrange the Super Star Match for November 10, 2006 without reasonable grounds to believe the date was a clear one on the ICC calendar. Even if Stanford may be used to getting his own way by dint of the royal Antiguan status he enjoys, he would have to be completely swept away by his own grandeur and blinded by the heraldry surrounding the 20/20 tournament to ignore the implications of an unconfirmed date for his grand finale.
But by June 3, before the tournament, when he could not yet have known how successful it would be, he was announcing that South Africa had been confirmed as the team to play against his Super Star team in November. He did not yet cite an exact day, but it must have meant that a fair amount of the details had been arranged.
Yet, the WICB, in its press release of last week, said it was only during its negotiations with the Pakistan Cricket Board that Stanford representatives sought to have the clashing dates amended. The WICB said it wrote the PCB on June 19 seeking this amendment - 16 days after Stanford's announcement. It said the PCB responded on June 23, saying its commitments with the Future Tours Program for its following tour to South Africa prevented this.
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Stanford released a letter written to the WICB in January stating that the ICC had approved November 10-12 as open dates for the tournament. Perhaps the ICC might be inclined to confirm that this was so, as there has been a terrible misunderstanding about what was agreed to and what was still pending confirmations.
These have had consequences, such as the resignation of Clive Lloyd from the Stanford board. His resignation, while understandable as the relationship between the WICB and Stanford has descended to the deplorable level that exists between the WICB and the West Indies Players' Association, is unfortunate.
As has happened before, wherever there is conflict with regard to cricket in the West Indies, the WICB is one of the warring parties. The WICB got away with blaming the recent Brian Lara-selector issue on flawed communications. This time, it is saying that in January it agreed to the Stanford 20/20 tournament (after some of its directors had criticised it) but that it had no discussion about the Super Star dates until the ICC contacted it.
All on the heels of an August 9th interview with WICB president, Ken Gordon, done by Ryan Patrick of CaribbeanCricket.com where Gordon revealed that Stanford had indicated he would sponsor the first year of the Bennett King development plan, estimated to cost US$2 million a year for four years, but that that had "now changed."
Stanford may have pulled his money out of pique for his tournament's jeopardy. He complained that there was no "reciprocity" from the WICB, a claim we have heard from many disparate quarters. Stanford is not the kind to take this quietly, indeed he is cut of the same arrogant cloth as Ken Gordon is. He has declared that unless he can get a full squad (i.e. of his choice), he will cancel the tournament.
This might be the kind of reciprocity the WICB needs, but is all this bad faith good for cricket? The regional tournament was good for it, the Super Star clash will raise profiles, but unless better relationships are forged, the warfare continues to drag everything down.
* This column is republished with permission from the NATION newspaper in Barbados where it first appeared.