IT?HAS?taken Sir Hilary Beckles 14 years to remember the contribution the great West Indian thinker, Michael Manley, made to his book The Development Of West Indies Cricket published in 1988.
No credit or acknowledgement of the contribution was made in the book or at the time of publication but it is trotted out now, in support of current debate by Sir Hilary, to show how he and the great cricket intellectual shared his views.
Is he seeking credibility or is it new sales on the back of a great Jamaican cricket intellectual?
But the gentleman cloaked in his colonial honour awarded by the Queen of England, an honour rejected by Manley, expects us to accept his hypothesis of the reasons for West Indies cricket failure because of the political structure of the society and that this view was supported by Mr Manley.
The reason may be a lot simpler.
Sir Hilary is not prepared to look at the simple explanation and the failure of the [West?Indies Cricket Board], of which he is a member and which he joined “only to help with the crafting of an education response as a countering force” thereby limiting his responsibility for board performance to the education solution only.
He follows this very quickly with the success of the High Performance Centre (HPC) in Barbados. He ignores that it was preceded by an HPC at St George’s University in Grenada, the product of the efforts of Dr Rudi Webster, a Barbadian, and the Vice Chancellor, Dr Peter Bourne and sponsored by Shell, that preceded the HPC by ten years.
The Cricket Academy in Grenada did very good work and impacted the cricketers who attended and was effective until Shell withdrew its sponsorship and sold its operation in the Caribbean. I suppose, like so many Barbadians in cricket, who greeted this excellent effort with “how could it be set up anywhere other than Barbados, the home of cricket in the West Indies”. The Barbadian support was lukewarm and I assume Sir Hilary continues its rejection. This event, however, was the start of the brighter day for cricket.
Sir Hilary’s charge
Sir Hilary makes some other observations on players rejecting their national duty and states that no player from a number of Test countries he names would follow the pattern of our players. I wish to suggest that their retainer contracts and other income from cricket are worth three or four times the income of our players who do not play in the lucrative Twenty20 series and so they have no need to follow our lead. If he looks at the current IPL season, he will note that the Australian players were in the IPL the moment their Test tour in the West Indies was over.
If he looks at the qualification our players must meet to play for the West Indies he will understand why the WICB has failed. It is time to adjust these requirements.
The WICB has not been alone in its failure because the ICC has been guilty also. As I write, no clear policy exists for international Twenty20 cricket tournaments. The IPL-type tournaments are proliferating and we now have them in Australia, England, Bangladesh and South Africa and a start-up in Zimbabwe and a promised tournament in the [United States] all directed at generating large sums for the respective cricket boards.
Lack of leadership
Neither the ICC nor the WICB provided the leadership to control and regulate this new version of the game. The fear of the power of Indian money and audiences have left the ICC weak and paralyzed.
The WICB solution has not been to develop early, an exciting and profitable version of Twenty20 cricket but to enforce its old existing rule about playing in its regional tournaments to qualify for the West Indies team and to badger and harass the players into complying.
They have failed to provide both the leadership and cash. It is this responsibility Sir Hilary wishes to walk away from by casting blame solely on the players.
Sir Hilary then shows the way forward in the leadership of Darren Sammy, whom he mentions in the same context as two of our most successful captains in cricket ever, Sir Frank Worrell and Clive Lloyd, a palpable insult to these two icons, who stand above most people who have played the game for their exceptional performances and achievements.
How ridiculous can one get in pleading a special position? In his promotion of Sammy as the great West Indian hope, he ignores the two most successful captains in regional cricket in the last ten years, Darren Ganga and Tamar Lambert.
Perhaps combining winning with outstanding leadership does not appeal to either Sir Hilary or the selectors. These two captains on performance, especially with bat and ball, should always make the West Indies team ahead of Sammy.
WICB must understand the change that has taken place even if not led by them. It is that Twenty20 cricket will be a major feature of future cricket and they must plan around it and develop ways to profit from it, in order to provide the best remuneration possible to their players.
The WICB should indicate what they are doing to get the regional tournaments sponsored and to promote a profitable Twenty20 international tournament. Success in this area will go a long way to reducing the tension between the board and the players.
Sir Hilary, in his colonial cloak, may despise cash as a weak substitute for the honour of playing for the West Indies but until it is available in sufficient quantity, they will have to continue to exert unnecessary pressure on the players to comply with their terms and play for the West Indies.
As an outstanding trade unionist, Michael Manley would have understood the players’ desire to earn enough to make them independent and to enable them to stand up to unfair bosses and protect their rights. That is why he supported the Kerry Packer series.
Sir Frank Worrell and Lloyd would have failed if the teams they led were not selected on merit. Until we select the best players to represent the West Indies, we will continue to underperform. The board members, like Sir Hilary, may continue to blame our failure as a team on politics and not the less savoury type of “West Indies Cricket politics” and nothing will change.
• Patrick Rousseau is a former president of the West Indies Cricket Board.
