IT’S ALWAYS more than a little amusing to hear people pining about the past in the context of playing cricket “the way it should be played”, or words to that effect.
Clearly the assumption is that there was a period when the game was resistant to change and everyone was happy with the way things were going. Well, as best as can be discerned, no such period exists. Cricket, by its very nature, is a pastime that has evolved with the changing times.
Yes, sometimes the changes are more drastic than gradual, like Kerry Packer’s World Series in the late 1970s, which was essentially a battle for television coverage rights in Australia that prompted the breakaway format involving day/night matches, coloured clothing, drop-in pitches and, most importantly, significantly greater payments to players, which is why it attracted almost all of the best talent available in the West Indies at the time.
In one sense, that was nothing new as the Caribbean’s best have always been drawn to foreign fields in search of greater financial and other opportunities from the game, given the limited scope offered by our small economies.
Obviously, England comes immediately to mind whether in the shape of the minor leagues or the County Championship as an outlet for many decades for West Indian cricketers to ply their trade and refine their skills, whether or not it was ultimately to the benefit of the regional team.
Loyalty
Now, though, in this era of the enormously popular Twenty20 format and the very lucrative franchise leagues all over the world, administrators the world over are grappling with a reality that is very different from what would have generally obtained with the earlier generations of professional cricketers.
Until nine years ago, and the advent of the money-spinning Indian Premier League, first loyalty was almost always to country. That is no longer the case, and an increasing number of cricketers everywhere are turning their backs on national and international careers to essentially become T20 specialists-for-hire.
Football has been facing a similar situation for decades and the usual club versus country row that develops when players are called to national duty has resulted in FIFA establishing clear “windows” in the annual calendar which allow for international fixtures to be played.
Even when there is no convenient gap in the schedule, as for the biennial African Cup of Nations, which kicks off in Gabon on Saturday, the sport’s governing body has introduced mandatory penalties and sanctions for clubs and players who refuse to answer the call to represent their respective countries.
Unlike FIFA, though, the International Cricket Council (ICC) is not a governing body for the sport as much as it is an umbrella organisation that facilitates the powerful members – India, England and Australia – dictating terms to the lesser lights, including the West Indies.
Glorified lackeys
While the ICC and their executives like to present themselves as being in charge and capable of charting the way forward for the game, they are no more than glorified lackeys required to do the bidding of the real power-brokers, especially the Indians in the modern environment.
So as much as the ICC talks a good game about the primacy of Test cricket and the priority of national representation, there really is nothing that is actually enforceable. So players, once they determine that the money from all the different T20 competitions is more than adequate compensation for missing out on, as in our case, playing for the West Indies, will continue to seek their fortunes elsewhere and in greater numbers.
And that will be the situation even in a relatively harmonious administrator-player environment. When it is considerably less than that, as is the case here, the steady stream quickly becomes a gushing torrent of talent lost to the Caribbean cause.
As an example, despite scoring hundreds for West Indies at T20 and One-Day International level last year, Trinidad and Tobago opening batsman Evin Lewis was speaking hopefully last week of earning an IPL contract which would rule him out of contention as a possible option to be Kraigg Brathwaite’s opening partner for the Test series against Pakistan that is likely to begin at the end of March.
Never mind the grumblings of those referring to contemporary players as “mercenaries” (weren’t Clive Lloyd and company similar mercenaries as well in going off to World Series Cricket?), it is highly unrealistic to expect West Indian cricketers to turn their backs on such riches.
We are not alone in coping with this challenge, although conciliation rather than contention between players and officials would facilitate a dialogue which could actually redound to the benefit of West Indies cricket. Failing that, expect to see more and more jetting off in the direction of the pots of gold at the ends of rainbows beyond the horizon.
Fazeer Mohammed is a regional cricket journalist and broadcaster who has been covering the game at all levels since 1987.
