A THORNY ISSUE: It starts at the top

Wed, Aug 5, '15 by ANDI THORNHILL

IT CUTS DEEP to the core that it is more than likely the once mighty West Indies cricket team won't be part of the lineup for the next ICC Champions Trophy.

It is a situation that represents how far and how quickly we have fallen from the top of the cricket ladder in the past two decades.

There seems to be nothing that can halt the slide no matter how hard regional administrators try.

Not even the creation of centres of excellence, high performance academies, revised concepts on regional competitions, central contracts, more money and more benefits for players.

Nothing seems to be working to take us back up the ladder, in fact, it seems the more we do, the faster we are sliding down the ladder and the returns are minimal.

And that's the precise reason we won't be in the Champions Trophy: we have fallen from the top eight of international cricket. To think that not so long ago, the West Indies ruled the cricketing world like none before or since!

Perhaps we are looking in the wrong direction to fix the problem. We might just be placing the cart before the horse.