Dear Editor,
England is scheduled to play three one day matches against the West Indies beginning in Antigua on March 3, 2017. The West Indies played nine matches against Pakistan a few months ago, and lost eight of the nine. The head coach of the West Indies team was fired immediately before the Pakistan tour; the CEO of the WICB said he could not understand why the dismissal of the coach immediately before the tour could have had a significant impact on the performance of the team. The team proceeded to Zimbabwe without a head coach where it failed to qualify for the final in a series in which the other two teams were Sri Lanka without some of its best players, and Zimbabwe. Immediately before the series in Zimbabwe the team’s best batsman was sent home for what the board evidently concluded was an inappropriate response to his contract offer when he said that the chairman was operating on the basis of incorrect information and that he was not very smart.
I think all reasonable people believe that preparation is critical to success in any endeavour, including international sport. It is therefore fair to ask the WICB now whether it intends to hire a head coach soon and begin preparations for the English visit. I suggested recently in a letter published in Stabroek News that people concerned about West Indies cricket ought to pay very careful attention to what appears to be the willingness of the board to sacrifice the interests of the region`s cricket in pursuit of what it sees as its need to preserve its institutional interests and the egos of its directors, by depriving the region of its best players and coaches, especially one like Phil Simmons, who seemed to be appreciated by the players.
It has proved difficult to achieve Caricom’s stated purpose of dissolving the WICB, but it cannot be impossible to require the board to prepare for international encounters where the pride of the whole region (as distinct from that of the WICB) is at stake. Surely there are cricket people in the region who care enough to do something about it. Time is already of the essence.
Yours faithfully,
Romain Pitt