WICB – A Blighted Organisation
The recent election of St Lucia’s Julian Hunte to the position of President of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) may well have been an act of desperation on the part of the region’s cricket leadership given their continued failure to adequately address the many issues confronting the sport and the organisation itself.
Hunte had been among the leadership of the game in the region before taking on political responsibilities on behalf of his country’s government. Some may recall that he was the long-standing President of the Windward Islands Cricket Board before our own Lennox John. Hunte also sought to climb the ladder within the then West Indies Cricket Board of Control (WICBC) at a time when some came to believe that the organisation did have some control.
The decision to turn to Hunte seems to have come as the WICB, significantly, received the resignation of yet another of its presidents.
It is unfortunate that the WICB seems unperturbed at having one of the more rapid turnovers of presidents among the test playing nations of the world.
Hunte’s election comes in the wake of seemingly weak leadership on the part of former presidents of the organisation, the most recent of whom were Teddy Griffith of Barbados and Ken Gordon of Trinidad and Tobago.
The CWC2007
The Cricket World Cup 2007 was awarded to the WICB only because it was the turn of the region to do so.
The ICC is anxious to join the major sporting organisations across the globe in introducing a bidding process among its membership for the Cricket World Cup, however, it had earlier decided to allow the major test playing nations to each have the opportunity to play host to this event.
2007 was the turn of the West Indies the last of the test playing nations to have the right to host the event before bidding begins.
At the conclusion of the CWC2007, one could easily recognise why it is that so many critics across the region are confident that the WICB will never win a bid to host the Cricket World Cup again in their lifetime.
The tributes to the glowing success of CWC2007 have come essentially and perhaps only from the WICB and those who were privileged enough to have been in authority in the different countries that hosted activities. The outside world has been harsh and unforgiving in its criticisms.
The reaction of the WICB is not unexpected. It has to justify the expenditures that accompanied a most successful failure that served to embarrass the region more than enhance its international status.
But in the region, we are not always given to truth. “Monkey can’t see its own tail”, we often say in jest. The WICB is a classic case of this humorous phrase made a reality.
The pathetic display of bungling incompetence during the preparations for and the actual hosting of the CWC2007 has left many West Indians wrapped in the cocoon of their own comfortable mediocrity, patting themselves on the back. Perhaps it is this reality that allows us as a people to remain forever steeped in the cruel legacy of colonialism. Rather than engage in the meticulous analysis we smooth over things in haste, congratulating ourselves for having done anything at all since that is better than doing nothing. Excellence seems to have no real appeal for us.
The performance or lack thereof in the CWC2007 has not yet been analysed by the WICB. Instead, we seem to have been too eager to move along concerned more with seeing the back of Lara than with genuine change.
The players are very good examples of today’s social reality in the Caribbean but no one in the hallowed halls of the WICB wishes to see this for what it is. Emergent from an entirely different historical and socio-political era the WICB leadership, much like so many of our political leaders today, have lost touch with today’s youths and have no real links with the players. The bruising and most embarrassing battles between the Players Association and the WICB provide ample evidence of the extent to which the generation gap continues to widen.
The WICB seems content to pour store new wine in old skins oblivious to the inherent dangers to the future of a sport that once held pride of place in the Caribbean.
ICC’s Twenty 20
The International Cricket Council, fighting for its own survival among the top sporting organisations in the world, rushed headlong to ensure that no individual entrepreneur got the headstart in respect of organising a World 20/20 Cricket Cup. The rapid development and growing popularity of the shortest version of the game yet to emerge was not lost on the ICC and so South Africa played host to the inaugural World 20/20 Cup.
The Tournament was hailed as a new era in the sport as far as the ICC is concerned, even though several countries have held domestic competitions over the past few years since its introduction as a most exciting activity.
Of course, the West Indies continued its consistently inconsistent approach to the game, regardless of which version the team is involved. In the opening encounter, we got an opportunity to witness the capacity of Gayle to bash everything in sight as he amassed an individual total of 117. Of course, those who have not been accustomed to the developments taking place in 20/20 cricket underestimated the South Africans in that first encounter, once more failing to understand that the latter country has been the most aggressive in promoting this particular version of the game.
South Africa made light work of the West Indies. Nonetheless, there were the eternal optimists who were anxious to boast that yet again the West Indies had shown that they could play the game with some measure of competence. Some may suggest that it was a case of this version of the game requiring much less by way of intellectual capacity. Of course, the very next match saw the Windies humiliated by Bangladesh.
Consistent, isn’t it? They had to think out a strategy and that proved impossible.
But the 20/20 tournament showed the world that patrons like this version of the game. It is short, approximately four hours of play. It does not have any downtime. There is always something happening. Players manufacture strokes in an effort to score runs, with no attention to any text-book requirements in respect of stroke play. Meanwhile, the hapless bowlers are forced to be as creative as possible hoping more than anything else that the anxiety of the batsmen to get runs by any means necessary will be their own downfall. Former England cricket captain, Mike Atherton, has described the 20/20 version of the game of cricket as “the equivalent of the gas chamber for a bowler”
In the World 20/20 Cup, it was clear that the organisers did not have a Sunset legislation of the crass order that our countries had to endorse for so long in the earlier part of this year. Everywhere people were able to enjoy themselves at the matches. The viewers like the spectators on hand were of the understanding that the 20/20 version of the game is a ‘show’, and entertainment package that involves everyone, not just the players to make it a grand success.
Oh, how the WICB must now be kicking itself for having missed the boat on this aspect of the sport!
The World 20/20 Cup has shown that people are keen on going to a sporting arena to watch a version of cricket that allows them to get plenty of excitement and a result in just about four hours or so.
New developments
On 13 September 2007 Delhi, India, was the scene of a launch of an international 20/20 tournament that will involve a select number of teams drawn from cricketing nations across the world. Thus far those who have been declared as becoming involved are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and host India. It has been said that the WICB has not yet responded. The intention is to have two domestic teams representing each of the invited nations.
The date for the tournament has been set for October 2008 and will feature a top prize of $5m USD with matches being played in the wealthy Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
India has also announced that there will be an Indian 20/20 League beginning in April 2008. Pakistan and Sri Lanka have already committed to participating in the domestic Indian 20/20 League next year.
New Zealand has announced that it will have two teams participating in the Australian competition.
We have also been informed that there will be a 25% increase in the number of 20/20 cricket matches being played in the English Cricket competition, signalling even greater global spread of the new version.
South Africa already possesses what many see as the most aggressive 20/20 cricket competition in the world.
Of some concern to many around the world is the future of the other versions of the game of cricket. No longer are people anxious to sit through five days of test cricket and revenues have been significantly declining in this regard.
The once-popular One Day Internationals that offered each team 50 overs now seems too long and boring to be attractive when compared to what happens at the 20/20 version.
Sponsors are already re-thinking their support for test and 50 overs cricket and gravitating to the more exciting version of the game. The ICC and its affiliates do not appear to be thinking ahead. They are too engaged in rushing after the dollars that fill their coffers from the 20/20 version of the game.
It may well be that we are about to witness the end of cricket as we once knew it. There may soon no longer be a need for anyone to learn the craft of batsmanship. Cricket purists and historians may find themselves holding fast to DVD versions of the game as it once was.
What drawing board?
It is common to suggest that when things go wrong that one should return t the drawing board. The unfortunate reality for us in the Caribbean is that we do not have a drawing board and probably never had one.
When Stanford introduced his 20/20 competition in the region it was clear that he showed a complete lack of vision among the leaders of the sport in the Caribbean. Caught up in their own egos and internal petty jealousies and heady insularity the leaders of cricket in the Caribbean have failed to engage themselves sin any sort of critical thinking in respect of developments taking place around them and further afield in the international arena.
Stanford, an entrepreneur with a vision for money-making ventures, quickly saw the opportunity and seized it. As has always been the case, unfortunately, our colonial legacy left us once more bagger-maids as one by one the greats of the game in the region joined the bandwagon, and many, only too eager to explain their seeming mendicancy.
Of course, Stanford has long since seized the initiative from the WICB by establishing a Cricket Hall of Fame. There could not have been any more shame for the leaders of the sport in the region. But then again, the colonial legacy is so strong that even shame is difficult to muster.
Now, in typical adhocratic thinking, the WICB has sought to bring Stanford on Board. What a disaster!
What a shameful act!
Seemingly unable to think creatively the WICB has shorn itself of shame and belittled itself once more. No wonder Austin ‘Jack’ Warner continues to lament the woefully pathetic lack of leadership in West Indies cricket.
The WICB is well behind Stanford in thinking through the future of the game. What the leadership now seems to be doing is hoping to have Stanford’s ideas and financial acumen work in the best interest of the sport in the region. In this regard, the WICB’s leadership may do well to analyse the rise and fall of Caribbean Star and Caribbean Sun and determine the major beneficiaries.
It is unfortunate that at this stage the WICB has found itself in such a quagmire that the only leader to whom they could turn is Julian Hunte. Perhaps the likes of St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Lennox John and Walter St John of Grenada, would do well to explain their own experiences as members of the Windward Islands Cricket Board during the tenure of Julian Hunte. But that is not likely to happen and the region will watch yet again as the WICB plays patsy with a sport that continues to rapidly decline in the Caribbean.
Indeed, where there is no vision a people perish.
