Problems are never far away in West Indies cricket; they have come in profusion for two decades now.
The latest is the real possibility of failure to qualify for the 2017 ODI Champions Trophy in England and the fallout that would follow.
As tenuous as it has become and as demeaning as it is for a team that once utterly dominated the international game, the West Indies value their status among the top eight international teams more than ever. To be absent in England two years hence would further damage the already diminishing interest of players and public, both now under the spell of T20.
The West Indies have participated in all seven previous tournaments, victors over England in the final at the Oval in 2004, runners-up to South Africa in Dhaka in the first in 1998 and to Australia in Mumbai in 2006. Only a quirk of the Duckworth/Lewis system that deemed their rain-reduced match against South Africa in Cardiff in 2013 a tie, with a resulting reduction in their net run rate, prevented them from advancing to the semi-final.
For all that, they remain teetering on the brink, rated No.8 in ODIs as they are in Tests.
Repercussions from the events in India last October when players, once more disgruntled by the board, prematurely quit their scheduled tour and subsequent defeats in South Africa and the World Cup, kept them there.
They have had no ODIs in the interim, no chance to clamber back onto firmer ground. There is not even a domestic 50-overs tournament before their next international engagement, a three-way series in Zimbabwe in late August when their matches against Pakistan, their erratic equivalent, will settle the last remaining Champions Trophy place.
Both had 88 points prior to Pakistan’s on-going series of five ODIs in Sri Lanka, presently level after two matches. Should Pakistan prevail in the remaining three, they would move to 92 points, a four-point cushion going into the Zimbabwe show-down; defeat in the three would have the identical negative effect, leaving them four points behind the West Indies.
In other words, Zimbabwe holds the key for two teams that have both featured in every previous Champions Trophy.
The West Indies’ massive victory by 150 runs the last time they met, in the World Cup in February, would generally be a significant psychological advantage. It is eliminated by the likely unavailability of five of the 11 in that match – Chris Gayle, Dwayne Smith, Lendl Simmons, Darren Sammy and Andre Russell, all IPL players; their replacements would lack such immense international experience.
The dilemma the two now face was sprung on them by a succession of unexpected triumphs by a suddenly invigorated Bangladesh in their favourable home conditions over the past four months.
They trounced Pakistan 3-0 and, for the first time, prevailed over India and South Africa 2-1. The sequence propelled them to 96 points, far enough ahead of the West Indies and Pakistan to guarantee their entry, for the first time since 2006, among the ODI top eight come September 30, the decisive cut-off date.
All versions of the game in the Caribbean have been destabilized by a host of self-inflicted troubles, principally strained relations between the players and the board and hopelessly haphazard planning. The latter is more specific to the regional 50-overs tournament.
The first, for the Gillette Cup, was staged in 1976. The six regional teams were split into two zones, leading to a final; three of the scheduled seven matches were rained out. It was clearly unsatisfactory.
Only three times in the intervening 39 years, in 1982 and 2005 and 2007, has it been organized on a proper, round-robin basis, with the traditional teams (Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Windward Islands) playing each other for a minimum of five qualifying matches each, leading into the final in 1982 and, in 2006 and 2007, semis and final.
Otherwise, the board has stuck to the mainly meaningless group arrangement.
It also increased the teams in each group, if hardly the standard, by adding the University of the West Indies (later Combined Campuses and Colleges) and, from time to time, Canada, Bermuda, the U.S., Kenya, the West Indies under-19s and its High Performance Centre. Twice, the champions of the Windwards and Leewards (St. Vincent and Antigua) played separately from their combined teams.
For the 2016 edition, a combined ICC Americas team is to be one of the eight.
Director of cricket Richard Pybus recommended in his comprehensive report to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) 16 months ago that the “domestic competition format be double-round, four-day cricket and double-round one-day cricket to give the players the opportunity to learn formats, build up experience and produce levels of performance that will allow them to achieve levels of excellence that warrant selection to the West Indies team”.
Each would be restricted to the six territorial teams to pit “strength against strength” for a better player evaluation.
It led to an extension of the 2014-15 first-class season for the new, franchised Professional Cricket League (PCL) from one round to two with the number of teams restricted the six originals. It gave each team 10 matches, rather than five; the status quo remained for the 50-overs tournament.
Along the way, there have been six different sponsors. As the Red Stripe Cup, the semi-finals and finals were staged in Jamaica, home of the beer that bore its name; in 2014, the board signed a three-year agreement with an insurance company, along with financial support from the government, to locate all Nagico Super50 matches exclusively in Trinidad and Tobago.
There has been no consistency, no continuity. The 50-overs game appears to be an afterthought.
Where it stands in the scheme of things was evident at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in February and March; the West Indies were the only team without an appointed head coach. It left a new, young captain to deal on his own with key senior players seething over the omission of the perceived leaders of the Indian tour pull-out.
The cumulative effects of such disorganization and disorder have inevitably led to the present predicament.
