The WICB will never get it right on its own or else it would have been solved already

Jul 07, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
The dust has settled once again on a West Indies failed effort to win a major trophy in the cricketing world. The players are being blamed once again for the failure. Is it their fault after more than ten years of not getting it right?
When West Indies lost the quarter-final against Pakistan in the recent world cup, one of the commentators said that they would need to return home and have another look at their format. Another look at their format?
The cricketing knowledgeables around the world know that West Indies cricket is substandard. We in the West Indies know it too, but you know what? The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) does not know how to fix it. And you know what also? The WICB is behaving like the coloniser and the regional boards, the colonies, never inviting them to an emergency meeting to discuss this crisis we are in, and to plan a way forward.
We are suffering a long lasting degradation which seems not to have an end. The West Indies Cricket Board will never get it right on its own or else it would have been solved already. There is something else; we in the West Indies need to shout out with one strong voice, enough is enough, “we can’t tek no more.”
I wrote a letter to the media one year plus ago setting out my thoughts on some of the things the cricketing fraternity, from the clubs right up to the regional level, can do to improve the standard of cricket once again. I will mention them again.
1. Even though a team wins a game outright, the batting, bowling and fielding of every team will be subjected to scrutiny, thus you will not be awarded twelve points, because you did not perform in a professional way in these three dimensions.
2. Should a team lead on first innings and lose outright, it will start the next round minus six points
3. Should a team lose inside of three days, it should start the next round, minus twelve points
4. A win away, four extra points.
5. To represent the West Indies cricket team as a batsman you must have at least two centuries and four fifties in a regional season prior to a test series, while the bowlers should have at least twenty-five wickets.
Essential to all of this is fitness, no more two-day format. More time on the playing field is important. In order to implement these new requirements, judges will have to be appointed to assess these games and make judgement accordingly.
6. Umpires will be penalised for making too many errors in any one game; a committee can be set up to do this. It is my opinion that the likes of Stuart Williams and Junior Murray would have benefited from some poor umpiring, because they could not transfer their successes at the regional level to test cricket.
7. Better pitches are a must for our batsmen.
Our cricket administrators at all levels have failed our cricketers, e.g. Jamaicans Jermaine Lawson, Ricardo Powell and Xavier Marshall, and Dwayne Smith of Barbados. These players had flaws that should have been spotted well in advance and worked on. We have let them down and we will continue to do so to others until we start to take serious steps to turn our cricket around.
It does not matter how much the West Indies Cricket Board puts into our test team we will not win any serious competition until we turn things around at the grass roots.
Rudolph Marshall

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