AUSTRALIA’S CRICKETERS AND administrators are at war.
You wouldn’t know it, though, based on what’s happening on the field down under where Steve Smith’s team enters the new year seeking to complete a clean sweep of the three-Test series against recently top-ranked Pakistan in Sydney this week.
Compare that situation, where players leave the issues of labour relations and disputes to their appointed representatives while always seeking to give of their best on the field of play, to the polar opposite here in the West Indies, where a complete breakdown of trust between prominent senior players and the administration means that every step forward is compromised by a giant leap backwards.
It really seems like two different worlds, where the repetitive yet apparently compelling Caribbean cricket soap opera offers more than enough fuel for the endlessly raging fires of bacchanal, while the Australians, for all their aggression, conduct negotiations in a manner which dare not compromise the performance of representative teams.
That country’s sporting public, weaned on an expectation of 100 per cent commitment and a fierce national pride, certainly would not countenance circumstances that we in this region now take for granted, like an entire squad going on strike for the 2009 home series against Bangladesh, or holding an historic tour of South Africa hostage in 1998-99, or more recent situations where T20 franchise specialists become increasingly alienated and grow ever more comfortable with washing their mouths publicly on the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
It’s difficult to perceive, even in the midst of discussions that have broken down between Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association, any prominent figure in the administration making comments that would inflame the situation or be either factually incorrect or insensitive, prompting an even more vitriolic but highly inappropriate comment from an aggrieved senior player.
But, as we enter 2017, that is precisely the situation being experienced in the West Indian context, where even the encouraging sign of a rare Test match victory two months ago has long been clouded over by Darren Bravo’s Twitter rant, his subsequent expulsion from the Zimbabwe tour and the demand from the WICB of an apology, which has only prompted the player to respond via his legal representation.
If there are some who are wondering why this issue hasn’t been getting a lot more media attention, especially in the player’s homeland, it is because Trinis, in the same way that they have generally become desensitised to the twin-island republic’s murderous mayhem to the extent of more than 450 victims in 2016, are equally numbed by the recurrent decimal of disputes in West Indies cricket, even when it involves one of their own.
In updating the status of Australian cricket’s latest labour dispute (they crop up every five years or so but again, you wouldn’t really know it unless you were following the game there very closely), ESPNCricinfo assistant editor for Australia, Daniel Brettig, highlighted the conciliatory tone of CA chief executive James Sutherland, who stated two weeks ago that the two parties “have a lot more in common than they have not”.
For the record, this dispute centres on CA’s desire to end a revenue-sharing model with the players that has been in existence for 20 years. Obviously there are more complexities in the finer points of the proposed new arrangement, including an assessment of the value of the burgeoning women’s game. However, even as the bone of contention remains no closer to a resolution, Sutherland was telling ABC Radio that it may be sensible to pull back rather than butt heads.
“It was probably an opportune time, the right time, just to take a little bit of a deep breath with a couple of issues circulating, and, to be honest, we haven’t properly got into discussions or negotiations,” said Sutherland. “It’s all in the interest of the game, ensuring the game’s better.”
There is no doubt the language would be far more strident behind closed doors, but this is what is to be expected when individuals in positions of authority, either from the playing side or the administrative side, are insistent, so far, on standing their ground.
Still, and this is the fundamental point, these off-field matters should not in any way compromise what happens out in the middle. Victories in the first two Tests against the Pakistanis, the emergence of a couple of new talents after the home series loss to South Africa and the all-out aggression which continues to define Australia’s game, suggests that the line between the two has not been crossed.
Given that the line doesn’t even exist anymore in the West Indian context, we can only wish for the same sort of maturity from both sides here. Now that would really be cause to celebrate a Happy New Year.
Fazeer Mohammed is a regional cricket journalist and broadcaster who has been covering the game at all levels since 1987.
