The WICB is being made into a scapegoat

Sep 10, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The problem with West Indies cricket is not off the field. The decline in West Indies cricket is an on-the-field phenomenon.

I have no doubt that those persons who are calling for a forensic audit of West Indies cricket have the best interests of the Caribbean at heart. But they, better than most, ought to know that the performance of the team is not going to be solved by any forensic audit of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) or its affiliate Board.
They have all, at one stage or the other, been involved in the management of West Indies cricket. They were unable to stem the rot. They could not stem the rot because the problem was, and is still, being misdiagnosed. The problem is not at the level of the Board. The problem is with the development of players on the field.
Nothing that has been tried has worked, because the other countries have moved way ahead of West Indies in terms of the development of the game. One Guyanese cricketer who played for the West Indies and did a stint in South Africa, was overawed by the facilities he saw at the club level in that country. The other countries are preparing their teams better, have a better structure of cricket development at the national level, and do not have to contend with the high level of insularity that afflicts West Indies cricket.
One former West Indies cricket captain has pointed repeatedly to the inadequate facilities in the Region, which if significantly improved, will allow for the full development of our players. The junior West Indies teams – the Under 19s – have been dominant in international cricket. Yet many of these players are not coming through the ranks into the senior team. The reason is simple. They are not being given sufficient opportunities and the facilities for the improvement of their game simply do not exist.
It has been a long time since the West Indies has been a dominant force in cricket internationally, except for the T20 version, where they have been able to hold their own. The test and one day international teams simply do not have the quality as the rest of the world.
The West Indian cricket public recalling the dominance of the teams in the decade spanning 1978 to 1988, have become frustrated. They cannot understand the decline. The public have tried to find a scapegoat for the underperformance and that scapegoat has always been the WICB.
Ironically, many of those who are now calling for the forensic audit of the WICB were persons who lost their positions because they were made scapegoats for the decline of West Indies cricket. Yet most of them were amongst some of the best administrators the game has had.
The problem with West Indian cricket fans is that they wrongfully have assumed that the reasons for the ascendancy of West Indies cricket in the glory days under Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards had to do with the endogenous factors. They wrongfully assume that those glory days were associated with the quality of the WICB. Nothing could be further from the truth. The glory days of West Indies cricket were associated with, organizationally, the weakest Boards we ever had.
The strength of West Indies cricket had to do with two developments, the exposure given to our players by county cricket in England and the development of a professional team under Kerry Packer. This is what was responsible for the glory days of West Indies cricket, not the Board.
We are assuming that we have quality players, but that it is the management of cricket which is responsible for the poor performance of the players. The truth is that we have not in 30 years produced a batsman who has been as consistent and as destructive as Viv Richards. We have not produced fast bowlers to the standard of Holding, Roberts or Marshall. We have not produced quality players because of the development problems at the level of the club.
The game has evolved internationally and has become a commercial enterprise. Yet, we in the West Indies want to get stuck in some outmoded concept about people’s ownership of West Indian cricket and the need for governments to become involved in managing the affairs of the WICB.
Governments should be paying greater attention to what is happening to the facilities in their countries. They should be working with the Board to modernize the facilities. Not as was the case in Guyana, where one government actually attempted to hijack the operations of the Board because they recognized the commercial value of cricket which is now a global industry.
Tinkering with the WICB is not going to solve the problems of cricket in the Caribbean. The structure of cricket in the Caribbean has to be reorganized and the public must recognize the need for greater professionalism and to support the efforts being made to modernize the game.
The decision of the Guyana Cricket Board to launch a franchise league is a step in the right direction. The playing of competitions between clubs is simply not going to be enough to transform West Indies cricket, because club organization is weak in the Caribbean and still based on an outmoded system.
This change being engineered by the Guyana Cricket Board has to be infused throughout the country. There has to be reorganization at the local levels to ensure proper development and facilities for training. The boards should not be made scapegoats.

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