As the sacred scriptures of the last era recorded in Psalms 46:10 ‘Be still and know that I am God’, this is what is now required of humanity – to connect with the sacred divinity within them. – Hilarion
From the perspective of whose eyes are we to view recent events in West Indies cricket?
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) says: “We did things right, including negotiating with the players’ union, WIPA.”
The players, or the majority of them, seem to assert that they are no longer members of the same WIPA, with which they had previously associated at a time when negotiations gave them much money.
The players also now say: “We can’t dance with this board. We have our own new music, song and dance.”
Coach Phil Simmons complained that team selection changed, from original to convenient, as it were. Mr Simmons, well do I recall decades ago a selector from the Leeward Islands telling me that they would pick a team, say in Barbados, but by the time he got home a different team would have been announced.
Years later, new board, same story?
Various consultants and other prominent voices suggest that the board needs a complete makeover. Indeed, so do the governments of the region.
Thus the WICB is faced with a “vire” – a type of arrow which had a turning motion and which was formerly used with a crossbow – aimed at bringing about an evolution at the top of West Indies cricket.
The same group, shooting the crossbow, meets twice a year and agrees, or decides to agree on many matters, but on returning to their home town, revert to “not in my backyard”. Note I didn’t say CCJ or Can’t See Much Evolution.
Having worked with a number of regional organisations, I understand the politics, petty or principled, that might happen. There must come a time, however, when a principal must take the lead in reformation, if not revolution.
He or she must be able to “look through the eyes of competing entities” and point to congruence and confluence where they exist to get the factions to consider broader perspectives and to understand the significance of compromise, which changes the view from what I see to what we see. Such indeed is the sum total of West Indies cricket.
So let us all be still and know we can do better.
– Michael Rudder
