What has changed in Caribbean cricket apart from the fortunes of the Westindies team is the extent to which issues relating to what one might call the politics of the game surface in the mass media and in public discourse. Of late the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and its nemesis, the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) and the personages that run these institutions have become far better known to the Caribbean public than many of the cricketers who represent the West Indies.
The crisis on the playing field has coincided with the aggressive politicization of the game; the bureaucrats representing both the WICB and WIPA have been flexing their muscles, the politicians – as if they do not have enough on their own plates – have enjoined the affray, the region’s academics have turned their attention to writing about the crisis affecting the game and both the media and the fans of the game are still trying to catch up with the controversy.
In its simplest form some of the brouhaha in recent years has been about whether or not Chris Gayle should have been exiled from the West Indies team in the first place. In a sense Caribbean people were perfectly right to be upset over Gayle’s absence from the team particularly since in his absence from the Caribbean side he had struck a rich vein of batting form even as the West Indies