Fazeer Mohammed on the sad state of West Indies cricket that’s always in the news for the wrong reasons

Fazeer Mohammed21-Jul-2006

‘Right or wrong, good or bad timing, Lara’s remarks in Kingston were the culmination of a series of comments relating to selection and pitches throughout the series against India’ © AFP
Never let it be said that West Indies cricket is incapable of maintaining a level of newsworthiness to keep it almost perpetually in the public eye.This CJ issue thing will eventually boil down like bhaji and then we will all move on to some other matter to keep the fires of politically-inspired bacchanal burning. Israel will sooner or later complete the obliteration of southern Lebanon, especially with their civilised Western allies facilitating the process of annihilation in adopting a hands-off policy. And a month after Trinidad and Tobago’s final game at the World Cup, the football frenzy has run out of steam.But, as always, sports editors wondering about the prospects for a good lead story can always rely on the players, administrators and apparently now even the accountants associated with West Indies cricket to provide them with main headline material, unless of course someone like George Bovell goes and wins gold and bronze medals in the swimming pool on the same night at the CAC Games, as he did on Wednesday in Cartagena.The challenge, of course, is to choose from the many items generously spread across the massive buffet table. Would you like to try the auditors’ damning report on the level of the West Indies Cricket Board’s indebtedness? How about the decisions to overlook Dwayne Bravo for a retainer contract and investigate Brian Lara’s public criticism of selection and pitches? Don’t forget that you can also satisfy your appetite with a bit of what the Players’ Association is now saying in response to the WICB’s latest pronouncements. Maybe you should get a bigger plate, but still come back for a second helping.If this is a calculated effort to distract attention from the inaugural Stanford 20/20 in Antigua, then it is a masterstroke, although, to be fair, the tournament hasn’t exactly ignited much interest in this part of the Caribbean as yet (I don’t know too many people losing sleep to watch the delayed television coverage).While none of the information leaked or released in the past week is entirely surprising, it is still instructive as to the real depth and scope of the problems in West Indies cricket, raising enough questions to suggest that a few too many trumpets were used in all of the fanfare about running a tighter, more efficient ship and establishing a new relationship between administration and players.If the WICB and its World Cup subsidiary can incur a net loss of over $120 million for the financial year ended September 30, 2005, what will be the situation at the end of September, 2006, given that considerably greater activity would be taking place in the lead-up to the hosting of the 2007 World Cup? Are we to believe that such losses are normal, given the size of the undertaking, apart from the general year-to-year operations, even if it meant that the WICB’s accumulated deficit at that stage had soared beyond $210 million?One of the many things we learnt in school was the danger of putting all your eggs in one basket, yet the Board is relying heavily on the success of the World Cup to haul it out of the abyss, even though the auditors have observed that “the extent of the financial success of this event is not guaranteed”. No roti shop worth its dhalpouri would operate like this.Dinanath Ramnarine, West Indies Players’ Association president and chief executive officer, has stated that the decisions to bypass Bravo for a retainer contract on the basis of his recent personal endorsement deal with Cable and Wireless, and to appoint a committee to investigate Lara’s comments after the fourth Test against India earlier this month, “contravene fundamental aspects” of agreements in relation to the Memorandum of Understanding and Collective Bargaining Agreement, among other matters, between the WICB and WIPA.If so, was the Board engaged in mamaguy tactics three months ago just so that the home series against Zimbabwe and India could proceed untroubled by the threat of industrial action? Given the evidence of the last year-and-a-half, is this how it’s going to be ahead of every series or tour for the foreseeable future, especially with speculation already in the air that the proposed money-spinning one-day series against India in Toronto next month is in jeopardy because it was agreed to without any consultation with WIPA?And what is to be made of this investigation of Lara? Right or wrong, good or bad timing, Lara’s remarks in Kingston were the culmination of a series of comments relating to selection and pitches throughout the series against India, all of which were made publicly and were extensively reported in the regional and international media. So what are Sir Alister and Messrs Gordon, Lloyd and Shillingford going to investigate?As usual, such a bewildering course of action could only come from an organisation divided unto itself, with some members determined to show the captain who is boss, especially after they were apparently sidelined in the process to appoint Lara as captain for a third time. So now, two of the Caribbean’s leading personalities – Sir Alister McIntyre and Clive Lloyd – have been dragged into this foolish exercise to give it legitimacy.If anything, the real challenge for these four gentlemen is how to come up with a report that will accomplish the dual purpose of saving face for the Board and not getting the captain blue mad.I wish them well.