It’s not uncommon for sports fans to feel passionate about the West Indies team’s performance, especially when they experience a string of losses.
Recently, the team not only failed to qualify for this year’s Cricket World Cup Limited Overs competition but they also lost a three-match series 1-2 to India at home in the Caribbean.
If anything, cricket remains a unifying force in the region but one of the side effects of the regional team’s poor performances is that there is talk of some countries opting to play international cricket alone.
It is important to remember, however, that cricket, like any other sport, can be unpredictable, and teams go through phases of success and failures.
For the West Indies team however, which ruled world cricket for some 15 years, recent success has been few and far between and their failure to qualify for the One Day World Cup competition in October this year in India, after losing to minnows Scotland and The Netherlands and also to Zimbabwe, show clearly the depths to which cricket in the region has sunk. While some see the failed World Cup qualification bid as an opportunity for Cricket West Indies (CWI) to right the sinking ship, the West Indies cricket administrators, the selectors and even some of the players, obviously do not view the recent abysmal performances in the same light.
Instead of zeroing in on the causes for the lacklustre performances in all aspects of the game whether it be batting, bowling or fielding, utterances from those in authority seem to indicate that the string of failures is as is said in Guyanese parlance, `No big thing.’
What, however, is a `big thing’ is the fact that it is indeed a calamity that the West Indies cricket team failed to qualify for the Cricket World Cup for the first time since the inaugural event in 1975.
Given the team’s storied history and success in the early years of the World Cup, winning the 1975 and 1979 tournaments and losing in the 1983 final to India, the setback is nothing short of catastrophic. The fact that the team lost to Scotland in the Super Six stage (after having beaten them by 92 runs in a warm- up encounter just prior to the start of the tournament) should have been enough for the selectors and the team itself, to take notice of the freefall. Additionally, an unsuccessful run in the T20 World Cup in Australia last year, should also have set off the alarm bells about the team’s performances in white ball cricket and a blueprint should have been prepared for the future.
Not so.
The selectors went along merrily with their hop-scotch selection policies, failing to select the right horses for the courses and hoping that those selected would, despite their obvious shortcomings and underachievement, produce miracles.
Selection decisions are not straightforward, in fact, they are often complex and subject to analysis and criticism by fans and experts alike. It is also quite normal for supporters to question the decisions of the selectors, when results are not favorable. In cricket, simple factors such as a dropped catch or a run out, can influence the outcome of matches so the public sometimes might forgive the selectors for their choices/blunders.
However, in other countries, where more emphasis is placed on winning, the selectors are not given such latitude, nor are the players, many of whom know that repeated failures will cost them a spot in the rotation. Teams, except, the West Indies, continually strive to improve their performance and address areas of concern and while analysts and cricket enthusiasts will have differing opinions and views on what the team should do to improve, that authority and ultimate decision rests not with the fans, but with the governing body, in this case Cricket West Indies.
So, it is Cricket West Indies and the various selection committees, who must share the blame for the present state of West Indies cricket.
That there is need for some kind of intervention to halt the mediocrity that permeates West Indies cricket might be the view of the CARICOM Sub Committee of Cricket, chaired by Trinidad Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, which has often voiced concerns over the state of the game here.
Recently another Caribbean Prime Minister, Barbados’ Mia Mottley, called for a complete overhaul of the sport in the region. Mottley, while delivering the feature address at the 22nd Frank Worrell Memorial Lecture at the Roy Marshall Teaching Complex at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus recently, declared…“We have reached a point where the absolute imperative must be to change the governance of our game.”
According to a report in the Barbados Today newspaper, Mottley has consistently been a prominent advocate for the game in the region and she pointed out that the West Indies’ poor performances of recent had led to a decline in interest by fans.
Mottley said this was evidenced by the small number of spectators who turned out for the two Test matches against India in Dominica and Trinidad.
“Our people have already voted, and they have voted with their feet. I was horrified when I watched the audiences or lack thereof this last week,” she declared.
“When our public starts to send the message, as a politician, I would tell you and advise you it is time to listen. Because what you are losing is not only the financial basis for your continuance, but you’re also losing the basis for you to continue to choose from the best that there is because their parents are going to be advising them to move into different sports,” Mottley said. In fact, given the poor performances by the West Indies side, regional cricket fans might soon be tempted to ask for their money back or fail to attend the games altogether if the team continues its anaemic performances. Mottley did not mince words in her assessment of the situation. “We are playing the fool. I do not cast blame on any single person, but I am reaching out to an entire civilisation and its people,” she said.
“We continue to believe that we can rewrite the future of cricket in the Caribbean through fragmentation rather than cohesion, and insularity instead of unity,” she stated.
Mottley’s views, like others who have voiced concerns over the standard and the administration of the regional game over the years, will continue to fall on deaf ears although current President of Cricket West Indies, Dr. Kishore Shallow, in the wake of the sweeping condemnation by Mottley, said that his administration will contemplate governance reforms, and will look to implement some of the recommendations of the many reports commissioned by past presidents of CWI.
“We have produced several reports on governance over the years and the regional dialogue on this matter has also been unending,” Dr. Shallow said.
“The way forward is for all stakeholders to recognize that the reform effort is fundamental to the transformation and advancement of West Indies Cricket.
“I am resolute that if we are to achieve the desired outcomes and realize sustainable growth in West Indies Cricket, we must act with a measure of insistence and have a sense of priority towards the reform exercise,” Shallow said adding that “full consideration” would be given to the plethora of existing reports, including the 1992 Governance Report, the 2007 Patterson Report, the Wilkins Report in 2012, the 2015 Barriteau Report and the more recent Wehby Report in 2020.
Despite all of those reports, the regional game is beset by financial constraints, poor pitches, a poor first-class tournament, no proper youth development and a lack of long-term planning among other issues. In short there has been virtually no development in the sport and this is the crux of the problem that is West Indies cricket and why countries such as Ireland, Scotland and The Netherlands are beating us.
