Early last Friday morning, 21st October, the sounding of a ship running aground on the continental shelf reverberated throughout the Caribbean. The disaster was greeted with weeping and gnashing of teeth by the older generation, whilst the younger generation, glued to their smartphones, remained totally oblivious to the catastrophe. The SS Cricket West Indies had finally hit rock bottom, its timbers torn asunder – in this instance, its willows were silent – as the vessel ripped apart at its seams. Once the conqueror of the world, its proud legacy now lay in a heap at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea.
The inept crew hung their heads in shame, as it dawned upon them that their names were going to be associated forever with this wreck. This scuttling was aided and abetted not by the ghost of Sam Lord hanging lanterns in the coconut trees off the eastern shoreline of Barbados, luring the ship on to the rocks, but by a series of decisions taken over an extended period. This inevitable calamity had been in the making for ages; it was just a matter of time.
The West Indies were thoroughly thrashed by Ireland in their third game of the ICC T20 World Cup Qualifiers in Hobart, Tasmania last Friday. It was a must-win game for the former two-time champions, who were already suffering the embarrassment of having to compete with ICC Associate members and the other lowly ranked ICC members, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, and Ireland, just to qualify for the Super 12 Stage of the T20 World Cup. Ireland brushed aside the weak West Indies attack to knock off their unimposing total of 146 (for five wickets), whilst compiling 150 for the loss of a solitary wicket, with 2.3 overs to spare. Four days earlier, Scotland – yes, Scotland who had played two T20s in the last year – had handed the West Indies a similar spanking, dismissing the team for 118 in 18.3 overs to win by 42 runs. No, Wales did not participate, but most likely they too would have defeated the West Indies, who finished at the bottom of their four-team qualifying group.
Now that the West Indies have been reduced to the status of laughing stock and is the butt of all jokes in the cricketing world, it is pertinent that critical self analysis be conducted if they intend to continue competing at the highest levels of the game. How have they sunk to this nadir? How do they ascend from these depths of despair?
This running aground is a culmination of human and organisational factors which CWI must take full responsibility for, if the West Indies are to return to the apogee of the cricketing world. So far, the immediate response from the auspices of the CWI has been the standard knee-jerk rhetoric and indecision which have been the modus operandi for the past 25 years. CWI President Ricky Skerritt, who stopped short of noting whether there would be any casualties following this fiasco, stated, “However, I want to assure stakeholders that a thorough post mortem will be carried out in all aspects of our World Cup preparation and performance, and that solutions will be found in keeping with CWIs strategy to improve the quality and sustainability of cricket in all fronts, and in all formats. West Indies cricket is bigger than any one individual or event and continues to need the input and support of all stakeholders.”
However, since Mr Skerritt is now presiding over a catastrophe which in the Caribbean’s psyche ranks on the scale of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, this is not the time for post mortems, which no doubt, as a former Rhodes scholar, he is well aware, “do not bring back the dead”, as we are apt to say here. The West Indies cricket fan is tired and worn out with all these excuses and explanations. Now is the time for that decisive action, transparency and accountability that Mr Skerritt promised when he campaigned for office. What will come of this inquest? It will probably just join the Lucky Report (2003), the Patterson Report (2007), the Charles Wilkin Report (2012), the Barriteau Report (2015) and the Wehby Report (2020) on the shelves of the records room at the CWI offices where they have been gathering dust since they were presented with much fanfare. The reluctance to modernise the game in the region by the powers that be is clear to all and sundry who now accept that these guardians are more concerned about their status within the hierarchy of our society than the development of our cricket. How does Mr Skerritt intend to bend the minds of these dinosaurs? It bears repeating that the Wehby Report was commissioned on his watch and he had faithfully promised to implement its recommendations.
Why wasn’t Mr Skerritt’s first telephone call to Coach Simmons demanding his immediate resignation, or firing him if he refused? He was at the helm of last year’s meltdown in Dubai when the West Indies lost four of their five games in the 2021 T20 World Cup and should have been clearly informed prior to this tournament that he was on borrowed time. It is extremely disappointing that he did not follow the honourable protocol these circumstances demand and announce his resignation at the press conference after the whipping dispensed by Ireland. Instead, Coach Simmons declared on Monday that he was stepping down after the tour to Australia in early December. Nowhere else in the world of professional sport could this joke – yes, the whole business of West Indies cricket is just a joke from start to finish – happen; a lame duck coach deciding when he is going to depart.
Since the mid-1990s the declining standards of the players’ discipline, their approach to the game and their behaviour off the field, was often greeted by a West Indies board opting to look the other way. Players have been deciding to play when it suited their schedule, the pride of wearing the Maroon forsaken for personal gain. There have also been disgusting posts on social media, players abandoning tours, and missed flights. The list will only continue to grow until the players are made fully aware that they are our ambassadors at all times and a stringent code of behaviour and conduct is expected when one dons the Maroon cap.
The writing has been on the wall for all to read for years now. The ICC is hosting a World Cup Tournament and it’s unfathomable to believe that the West Indies team is missing. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
