Former Guyana and West Indies batting legend Alvin Kallicharran yesterday urged the government, the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) and cricketers to go back to the grassroots level in order to revamp the sport in the country adding that they must concentrate on developing Guyana’s cricket.
“Forget West Indies Cricket! Develop Guyana’s cricket first,” Kallicharran said at a press briefing yesterday at Grand Coastal restaurant on Main Street.
The former Port Mourant Cricket Club (PMCC) and Guyana’s first schoolboy captain in 1966, who now resides in England, said that the sole purpose for his trip to Guyana was to devise a plan with the executives of the GCB so that he can give back to his country and the sport on a long-term basis.
“I want to work with the youths and get my hands dirty in the grassroots level. I love working with kids,” he added.
Kallicharran, who in 1966 was Guyana’s first schoolboys’ cricket team captain said that he had written the government informing them of his wish to give back to Guyana’s cricket but had not received a favourable response.
“I sent my curriculum vitae (CV) to the government about three years ago and I received an email from the Minister of Sports back then thanking me for the CV and said he would get back to me. That was three years ago. So it’s not like I haven’t tried,” said the West Indies icon.
The 65-year-old Kallicharran, who played 66 Tests for the West Indies from 1972 to 1981, said that the current state of cricket in Guyana and around the Caribbean was a reflection of the changing times.
“The game hasn’t changed, the ground remains the same 22 yards and 75 yards, all that has changed sadly is the quality of cricket. Don’t talk administration, if we focus on cricket we wouldn’t have time to focus on administrators. That maroon cap, that blazer and winning for the West Indies meant the most to us back then.
“Time is only different in terms of the era, but cricket remains the same and all we need is people with inbuilt discipline and focus and ones that know the game which is, you need to bat long and bowl long in order to score runs and take wickets,” said Kallicharran.
With the emergence of multiple lucrative cricket tournaments around the world, along with what the West Indies cricketers will now earn from the new franchise system, Kallicharran said that it was important for players to approach the game from a long-term perspective.
“Don’t think about the game as a short-term career, look long term. If you look long-term you will have a vision and that vision will be to perform and then your career takes off. When we were playing from the Sir Gary Sobers to all the other greats, if we were to say that we were underpaid imagine what the ones before us were getting.
“The greatest cricketers to ever come out of the West Indies: Sir Gary Sobers, Sir Frank Worrell, Rohan Kanhai and Lance Gibbs, go and ask them what they earned from the game. Who are we to complain? If we look at the game itself, they set a high standards for us to walk in and all we had to do was to maintain it and the rest would have followed.”
Kallicharran, who spent time playing for the English County club Warwickshire, also defended his decision back in 1979 not to travel with the West Indies to play in the Kerry Packer World Series, saying it was about safeguarding his career to some extent.
“I didn’t go personally because I wasn’t too sure of how the Packer thing would go and if I went with Packer, Warwickshire would not renew my contract and that was bread and butter. My contract was coming to an end that year and I wasn’t sure if they would renew it so I didn’t go.”
He also pointed out that the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) who, over the years have had publicly documented fall outs with players because of financial misunderstandings, also promised him some amount of money back when he was a contracted player.
“When I went with the team to India, the WICB promised me X amount of money for taking the team to India and Allan Rae was the President and up to this day I’m waiting for the money. They never paid me. So don’t bring the board into it. We didn’t boycott, we didn’t strike. So the situation which transpired a couple a moths ago is a difficult situation for the WICB.”
Speaking about the exclusion of all-rounder Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard from the West Indies World Cup squad, Kallicharran said he was not too sure of the reasons and did not know the circumstances.
“I don’t know the reason, but I know I need performances to pick you. All I want is to see West Indies in a winning way so I say go back to grassroots level. Don’t tell me there’s not enough facilities and they have more coaches now than they had back then.”
He went on:” I believe coaches should have to communicate and be involved and know how West Indies people operate and know how to deal with them and don’t tell me the people who made West Indies cricket successful can’t be coaches.
“The Sugar estates played a big part in the development of cricket pumping a lot of money and throwing tournaments and when they took a backseat and disappeared the government didn’t take over, they stayed the same and did less than what they were doing and that was the downfall of cricket in Guyana.”
With the World Cup around the corner Kallicharran said that he believes that going back to basics and staying simple will revive the winnings ways of the Caribbean.
“We are playing as a nation you stand a chance as anybody but you have to be consistent and get with the simple habit of winning. Do simple things often, make simple things a habit, scoring runs and getting wickets, practice with a vision practice with a focus, that’s why I said go back to old fashion ways, consistency is the key,” he said.
In closing, Kallicharran said that he was “Happy to be here again and to sit with the board”, pointing out that since last year he has been in consistent talks with the GCB.
“I believe if everything works out well and the board gets over everything what’s happened, people like me can contribute and bring back things. Forget West Indies, develop Guyana first!”
