Numerous regional commentators, including former cricketers, past and current cricket administrators, journalists, political analysts and academics – as well as (shame of shames) foreign sportswriters, some well-meaning, others not – have opined on the well-documented events of the past few years and, more specifically, the past few months, that have brought the once proud and mighty institution of West Indies cricket to the sorry pass at which it now finds itself. Some have been more objective and scholarly in their analysis, while others have been more impassioned in their frustration, anger and hurt at the almost wilful incompetence and seemingly selfish interests of administrators and players alike. And while, on balance, most of the criticism has been reserved for the former, almost all have been loud in their condemnation of those who would sacrifice West Indies cricket on the altar of their egos.
Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, the virulent dispute between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) has brought West Indies cricket to an unprecedented low. The principals in the row may be choosing to ignore the wider implications of their respective positions, but the havoc they are wreaking on a cherished regional institution is doing incalculable damage to the self-esteem and regional imagination of the man and woman in the Caribbean street.
So bad is the situation that some feel the condition is terminal. Dr Rudi Webster, the former West Indies team psychiatrist and manager, believes that the cancer of selfishness and arrogance is eating away remorselessly at the game in the region and has issued a stark warning: “The cancer is not interested in the health or well-being of the body. It is committed only to its own growth, power and control in achieving its selfish goals; the cancer destroys and eventually kills the body. And in the end, it kills itself because it cannot live in a dead body.”
It appears clear to all, except the WICB and the WIPA, the two principal organs of West Indies cricket’s body politic, that the cancer must be excised, but the two still seem to be hell-bent on their mutual destruction, and with that the game itself.
Tony Cozier, the region’s most respected cricket writer, whose Fifty Years of West Indies Cricket in 1978, chronicled the rise and fall of the region-defining game, and who has painfully charted its inexorable decline over the past 15 years, has fatalistically declared that “from every indication, the game in these parts is now in its death throes.”
Mr Cozier has reported that the circumstances are “so dire that Jimmy Adams, the former West Indies captain, now WIPA official and president of the Federation of International Cricketers (FICA), [has] recommended euthanasia.” Mr Adams apparently believes that if there cannot be agreement between the WICB and the WIPA, then they should just “stop the cricket.” One sincerely hopes that Mr Adams is only staking out a negotiating position, for such public intransigence is most unhelpful and unworthy of a former captain. Worse, it is a betrayal of the high regard in which he was held by the West Indies public, when at the peak of his playing powers.
But there is a faint glimmer of hope. As we all know, Sir Shridath ‘Sonny’ Ramphal, one of the region’s most experienced and ablest negotiators, is mediating between the two warring parties. Progress has so far been disappointingly slow, notwithstanding the injunction by President Bharrat Jagdeo, the current Caricom Chairman, for the process to “be pursued with the utmost expedition.” But it is better that the process run a slow and necessarily tortuous course, if a lasting cure is to be found for this particular cancer.
Sir Shridath, a long-standing and committed regionalist, knows as well as most people, if not more, of the vital importance of West Indies cricket to the West Indian psyche and the sense of West Indian nationhood. When he chaired the West Indian Commission, its 1992 report recorded an excerpt from a presentation on the success in building a great West Indies cricket team in the late 1970s and 1980s, as an example of “perhaps the most succinct recipe for success in all the endeavours we pursue as a community of nations acting together.” We are sure we need not jog Sir Shridath’s memory, but some of the ingredients of that recipe need repeating here for the benefit of others less familiar with the commission’s report, those less aware of the collective aspirations of the West Indian people and those cricket administrators and players less conscious of the legacy they should be upholding:
“We must develop confidence in ourselves, in our ability to beat the rest of the world, in our right to be an example to others.
“We must make a commitment to excellence. We must be prepared to learn from the best and then make that best our own and put it into practice.
“We must make a total commitment to doing the job we had to do very well indeed. And, in making that commitment, build a reward structure which made the commitment worthwhile in a practical as well as a psychological sense.
“We must believe in frank and open communication at all times between those involved in the endeavour – and especially believe in this requirement at times of particular challenge or crisis.
“We must know that serious discipline is involved, self-discipline, team-discipline, discipline for a profoundly important purpose, not just for selfish purposes but for others who depend on our success being achieved.”
These simple principles and ironically prescient words have, sadly, been mostly ignored by those entrusted with the stewardship of our regional game. They have moreover been lamentably ignored in most of our regional endeavours, of which cricket represents our most spectacular fall from grace.
There is a growing wave of despair and anger across the West Indies. Many believe that the crisis gripping governance in cricket is but a reflection of the crisis of governance in almost all our regional and national institutions. It is not a pretty picture. Sir Shridath will be well aware of this and must surely recognize that in his hands lies more than just the future of West Indies cricket.