West Indies Cricketing disgraces

During the many years of West Indies cricket there have been many things for which the West Indies Cricket Board and other cricketing authorities in the region have done or failed to do that have negatively impacted the sport in our part of the world.

We have never really heard the Board apologise for the many occasions on which it has left the region reeling and now at the cellar position (in a manner of speaking) in the sport globally.

The time has come for us to address the many ways in which the cricket development process has been stymied over the years.

Treatment of ‘small islanders’

The experience of the cricketers of the so-called ‘small islands’ in West Indies cricket has been so disgusting that it seems to have escaped the books written on the sport in the region, with few exceptions.

Our own Michael Findlay perhaps stands out as the best example of how much the regional cricket bosses have little regard for the talent evident in the small islands of our region.

It is more than a little tragic irony that so often reference is made to the late Frank Worrell’s statement that the future of the game in the region rested with the smaller islands. This was after he was exposed to the wealth of talent reposed in the sub region, however the reality is that the pervasive nature of the ‘big island/small island’ discriminatory practices well beyond the realm of politics has militated against the leadership’s capacity to move beyond Worrell’s statement.