Dear Editor,
The good news is that Jimmy Adams, the new director of cricket, says he believes the selection eligibility rules should be changed. The bad news is that he believes also that the change may take some time because it will involve a “process” somewhat like the “process” that led to the rule that in the first place made it impossible for the region to ever select its best team. I worry about the need for a long period of thinking to change rules that were, on their face, irrational, although packaged to appear as though concerned with development.
In sport, forgetting what happened 9 years ago may be forgiven, but not what happened 9 months ago. In June last year the WI defeated both Australia and South Africa once to reach the final in the tripartite 50 over series. Among the players most responsible for the victories were Darren Bravo, Charles, Narine, Pollard, Ramdin and Samuels. A former manager, commenting on the poor performances against England in the recently completed series noted its unprofessional nature, with particular reference to the individualism displayed.
He made no reference to the absence of every one of the above-named players, along with other experienced players, from the team; that no member of the squad had played even 20 such matches; and for the first time in recent memory not one cricketer from Jamaica, which was in the regional finals, played a game. One likely explanation for the alleged individualism displayed was surely that each of these relatively untried players would have been more preoccupied with individual success to ensure future selection, than with the team`s performance.
The endless battle with ‘stars’ and ‘would-be stars’, and the unrelenting use of the blunt instrument of exclusion, as the sole method of punishing players, which necessarily results in the weakening of teams, although satisfying the egos of directors must end.
Not every act or statement that appears to challenge authority or even criticize directors must be seen as an existential threat to the WICB. The lines of authority are just too sharply drawn, and those who can see it have a duty to point it out.
The governor of the ECC Bank said recently, “We don`t have a particularly good record of managing things.” If he had thought of the WICB he would have added the word ‘people’ after “things”.
Yours faithfully,
Romain Pitt
