West Indies captain Chris Gayle was in an outspoken and talkative mood ahead of the final two Digicel One Day Internationals to be played at Warner Park in St Kitts.
Although the series has already been won by Australia, Gayle opened by saying that the team is playing for pride. "People on the street have asked for a victory. We will be working hard to give the fans something to cheer about," he told journalists after training on Thursday.
West Indian fans across the region and the wider world are trying to decipher this urgent press release from Dr. Julian Hunte, the president of the WICB. The release stated that the WI team, the flag carrier and symbol of unified English speaking Caribbean plus Guyana, has been threatened with relegation.
Suddenly, belatedly, the WICB is yet again in crisis mode and is sounding the alarm. Dr. Hunte in the release stated, "We need to synchronize all our various efforts and plans to achieve the short-term objective of getting higher up in the rankings..." While on paper this might sound like taking decisive action. In reality, it is yet another pipe dream – Dr. Hunte and the WICB tilting at windmills.
Throughout its history, the ICC has been bedeviled with allegations of unsavory practices and rulings. The feeling was that, invariably, the actions and rulings of the ICC, more often than not, tended to support the power brokers of world cricket. Until recently, the power brokers were England and Australia – and this reality fueled the perception of racial overtones to actions of the ICC.
Stripped of political correctness (I have never been a fan of PC, you know) what the critics were alleging, in not so many words, was that the decisions of the white-controlled ICC were disproportionately unfavourable to the non-white teams and nations.
Former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd is set to take over from Sunil Gavaskar as the chairman of the ICC's cricket committee.
According to published reports, the decision will be announced in Dubai at the ICC's annual conference on Wednesday. Gavaskar had quit his position earlier this year because of media commitments.
West Indies newest selectee, Nikita Miller, the left arm spinner from Jamaica said that he was not expecting to be called up this late in the Digicel One Day International Series.
"I wasn't really expecting it for the rest of the series, it came as a surprise but all in all I'm happy," Miller said shortly after his first practice session with the West Indies squad at Warner Park in Basseterre.
