THE thrashing by Ireland in their opening World Cup encounter, for thrashing it unquestionably was, heightens the pressure on the mentally fragile, clearly disorganised West Indies to qualify as one of the eight teams to move onto the quarter-finals.
Should they fail and, along with the likes of Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates, take an early flight home, the repercussions would be financially destructive.
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) depends heavily on the considerable revenue it derives from the sale of broadcasting rights. For 23 seasons after the first live television coverage out of the Caribbean for England’s 1990 series, the British company IMG (International Management Group) had the contract; it lost it two years ago to Ten Sports, owned and operated by the Indian conglomerate, Zee Entertainment Ltd.
The deal is that the WICB sells the rights on a bid basis; the contractee seeks to profit by passing on its coverage to international networks.
The allure of the sights and sounds, the sea and sand, of the Caribbean are major promotional points; with international matches beamed to Britain from noon and usually in the midst of winter, it is especially so for Sky Sports.
Not just pretty pictures
Yet pretty pictures alone don’t cut it with TV executives. Competitive sport between professional teams of genuine quality is what their viewers are primarily tuning in to watch.
There was a time when the West Indies were the strongest, most attractive team in the global game. They were in demand, primarily in Australia and England, the pioneers of live televised cricket; they could name their price although the WICB habitually undersold itself.
Those days have long passed. The team now finds itself on the bottom rungs of the ICC’s rankings ladder. The rest of the world has become fed up with the ineffective administration and its fractious relationships with its players that have created strikes and, most recently, the team’s pull out of the tour of India.
The West Indies have increasingly become a hard-sell for IMG and now Ten Sports. Sky once acquired all cricket from the West Indies from IMG, marketing it to eager international networks; they now focus only on their own market.
Already, as penalty for the withdrawal of its team from the tour of India in October, the WICB faces a threat from the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) of cancellation of India’s visit to the Caribbean next year. It would be a financial blow to the WICB more devastating than any other.
The rest of the world, not least television bosses, is closely following events in Australia and New Zealand over the coming weeks and the subsequent fortunes of West Indies cricket.