Dear Editor,
Cricket governance is, to use a phrase I first heard from, ironically, the current US President, ‘above my pay scale,’ so I will avoid writing about it, other than to note that the people who have written reports and recommendations at the request of the WICB, for the WICB, can fairly be described as the best and the brightest. I am therefore mortified by the failure of the board to accept those recommendations, especially as they all seem to be so similar. The board`s failure to act on them defies rational explanation, and therefore has to be placed in the category of the perverse.
I worry, nevertheless, that serious interest in this issue appears to have been generated solely by the frequency with which the team has lost Test and one-day matches in the twenty-first century, and espouse the view that the governance issue is to be taken seriously, no matter the won-lost record, and that there are other issues that have a serious negative impact on on-field performance.
When someone wrote, not very long ago, in the Jamaica Gleaner, that West Indians were not capable of playing the long form of the game, but were temperamentally suited to playing only the shortest form of the game, the letter generated no response from influential journalists.
It is notable that the country associations also seem to have serious problems, that may or may not have a governance component. From my personal perspective, it appears evident that both the WICB and the country boards share what I describe as ‘structural’ problems and this is reflected in at least these two areas: 1.what appears to be the widespread acceptance of the belief that wickets in the region are substandard; 2. the large number of talented cricketers who appear to have retired prematurely. Here are a few: Ronnie Sarwan, one of the better batsmen of the first decade of the twenty-first century; Adrian Barath; Kieron Powell; Donovan Pagon; Xavier Marshall; Leon Garrick; Germaine Lawson.
While the real politicians and the cricket politicians struggle to resolve their differences, I recommend on an interim basis, the following:
- That the WICB allocate funds for transportation and accommodation for a meeting of all the head groundsmen in one place for some serious in-depth discussion about wicket preparation. Provide them with a secretary to record their findings and recommendations.
- That the WICB allocate similar costs to a willing journalist to meet with the cricketers whose names appear above to do in-depth interviews to determine and report on the real causes of their early retirement.
- That the WICB sponsor some really knowledgeable person involved in high-level professional sport in a country in which such high-level sport is the norm, to speak and provide insights to managers and fans about the nature of professional sport, and especially the handling of professional athletes for maximum productivity.
Yours faithfully,
Romain Pitt
