Like every West Indian cricket-lover and head of government, Baldwin Spencer, chairman of the CARICOM Sub-Committee On Cricket and Antigua’s prime minister, is pulling his hair out over the poor performance of West Indies cricketers.
In this week’s Big Interview, Spencer spoke from the heart about the West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) in an interview in New York with The NATION’s North American correspondent Tony Best.
P. J. Patterson, a former prime minister of Jamaica, has complained that the heavy investment by Caribbean governments in cricket facilities for the 2007 Cricket World Cup didn’t bring the expected results. Is he right?
Spencer: I agree with Mr Patterson entirely because the original plan was for the stadia to be used as multi-purpose facilities for entertainment and sports and not simply for cricket, if we were to see a return on investment. That return would enable us to maintain these facilities. In the case of Antigua and Barbuda, the maintenance cost is tremendously high just to do nothing more than to ensure that the facility remains in usable condition. We never really budgeted for it but we have to be utilizing funds from here, there and everywhere just to maintain ours.
Is the poor performance by the West Indies team contributing to the heavy financial burden?
Spencer: We cannot rely on cricket to keep these facilities in good shape. We are not doing well in the field, in any case, and we are no longer an attraction in that regard. We must come up with a regional strategy, as Mr Patterson suggested. We were told that at the beginning. It was never intended to use the facilities in the way that they are being used now. We have to develop a regional strategy outside of cricket for their use that can involve Europe and other places.
What’s happening to our cricket?
Spencer: These days we can’t even get three good Test matches with any cricketing nation. It has become as bad as that. We can only get one or two matches and that sort of thing. Even with the One-Day Internationals (ODIs) we have problems with other cricketing nations. We should follow the example set by India and other nations where ODIs have become major business transactions.
We had the situation where Allen Stanford tried the Twenty20 and I would have thought that we would have learned some lessons from that and take the lead by developing something that is Caribbean. But we haven’t. We are really missing out on a lot of things and it is very frustrating. The whole question of what we are going to do with these expensive stadia across the region is a front-burner issue.
What then is the first move?
Spencer: Now that Caricom leaders have reactivated the Regional Sub-Committee On Cricket, which I have the task of chairing, we have to try and resolve some of the problems between the West Indies Players’ Association and the West Indies Cricket Board.
Who is to blame for the sorry state of affairs?
Spencer: I think everybody has to accept responsibility for what has happened – the board, WIPA, the governments, even the society at large, including the private sector. They (private sector) haven’t come up with any kind of initiative to capitalize on cricket for the promotion of businesses.
As I see it, everybody has to accept some blame because initially the understanding was that there would have been certain legacies that would arise from the World Cup and we needed to package it in such a way at the very beginning to bring benefits.
We knew what was going to happen, not only at the domestic level, but that we must take it to a regional basis. At neither level have we been able to make a proper effort to do something about it.
How are you approaching the work of the committee?
Spencer: We had a meeting recently in Barbados when we were there on the margins of the
China-Caricom forum. Arising out of that meeting, we said that cricket of the Caribbean is owned by the people of the Caribbean. It is not the board or the players but the people. We have asked the board and WIPA to lay out for us what are their major issues, what are the possible solutions as they see them.
We are bringing the stakeholders into the mix as well because they have an interest in West Indies cricket just like the players, the board and so on. When we have gotten their positions, we will examine them to see how we can help resolve the issues between the players and the board.
But on a more comprehensive basis, we have to decide what we are going to do about the state of our cricket as it relates to its management, governance issues.
But didn’t P. J. Patterson do some of that work years ago for the board?
Spencer: Yes. His report is there but it was never allowed to be implemented. The board tooka particular view of that report and they have failed to put it into the process because it saw it as a challenge to its authority and power. That’s because it talked about bringing the stakeholders more into the management and governance of cricket.
It would appear as though the board took the view that [the report was encroaching on its power and authority and did everything, in my view, to frustrate whatever efforts were being made to implement some of those very important recommendations that came out of that Patterson Report.
Are you going to look at the Patterson Report?
Spencer: We are going to look at all the matters and deal with them in the interest of West Indies cricket.
You seem to be a very disappointed Caribbean leader.
Spencer: Yes, I am disappointed because the board, the governments, the players have presided over the literal destruction of West Indies cricket. As it stands now, we have to go on a rescue mission. Let’s face it. Cricket is one of the things that has united the people of the Caribbean.
We love our cricket and it means a lot to us. Cricket is not just playing the game on the field. As C. L. R. James said, it goes beyond the boundary. It impacts on the psyche of West Indian people.
What do you mean?
Spencer: If we are not managing well, not playing well, it affects the society. It has something to do with how we go about our daily basis as a people. It affects us tremendously. We have to be concerned about that.
Secondly, the governments of the region invested a lot of money in trying to prepare us for that Cricket World Cup and the players, the board and other stakeholders owe it to the people to show that at least we are doing our best to keep West Indies cricket at a level which brings us the international recognition we once had. We once dominated international cricket for years and we have to bring our cricket back to those glory days.
Should governments have a hand in running cricket?
Spencer: No. We as governments don’t want to be running the day-to-day affairs of cricket, not at all. But I feel that the governments, based on the investments and the interest of the people, must get West Indies cricket on a sustainable path. As it stands now, we are spinning our top in mud as far as performances go.
What about plans for the management of the game?
Spencer: I am not too clear about the future plans in terms of all the problems and conflicts with players and where the emphasis should be. Should it be with the current cricketers or should we be concentrating our efforts at the school level, or should it be a combination of all these things?
We should know what we are going to be doing with the game over the next five to ten years. We should know how we are going to connect players, governments and society. But we don’t.
Are the West Indies Cricket Board and WIPA killing the goose that lays the golden egg?
Spencer: To some extent, yes. There is blame on both sides here. But there are lots of things at play here and what we have to do is to bring all of the parties, everybody, even those people who have been trying to help West Indies cricket through sponsorship and so on, they have to be brought into the picture. They must be a part of the future, not just for sponsorship, and their businesses would benefit. It must be more than that.
When you look at the other cricketing nations, what do you see?
Spencer: All of the other nations have gone ahead of West Indies in terms of how they have organized their cricket.
It is true that we are separated by water but that shouldn’t affect our ability to organize our cricket. If we can organize a successful Cricket World Cup, why can’t we get it right now? We have shown the world we can do it.
Shouldn’t some of the domestic cricket bodies share the responsibility for things?
Spencer: It’s not simply regionally; I am thinking of the domestic level as well. We have failed on some of the things we said we would have done to regain the glory we once had and recovering some of the returns on the level of investment in stadia. We failed.
When does the Cricket Committee meet again?
Spencer: We are to receive the reports from WIPA and the board and we will seek to engage all of the other stakeholders. After that the committee would meet sometime in October.
This is very important because our future depends on how we address this cricket problem.
