WICB should close shop
As it stands now, the entire Local Organising Committee, LOC, for Cricket World cup 2007, CWC2007, here in St Vincent and the Grenadines and indeed throughout the Caribbean must be considered the laughing stock of the entire international sporting community. Long before the commencement of the goat cook warm-up matches were held here, I chastised our LOC and the CWC2007 Organisers for their profound insensitivity to the cricketing culture of our Caribbean peoples. I berated the unbelievable weakness of these LOCs across the region and the respective national Governments, lame ducks, as they surrendered our cultural sovereignty and capitulated to the wishes of the International Cricket Council, ICC.
Today, with the CWC2007 coming to a close and with no West Indies in the semi-finals, the many harsh restrictions have been lifted. At this late stage, we are attempting to get the international sporting community an opportunity to finally see firsthand the way we normally engage ourselves when we attend a cricket match. Today, at this late stage we are seeking to have our Caribbean people represented among the sea of visitors, embarrassed that perhaps, just perhaps, we sought to make so much money from gate receipts that we ignored the nature of the respective economies in the countries where we allocated matches in the CWC2007.
Restrictions Galore
The national Governments all rushed to pass legislation that effectively diminished our peoples’ ability to have genuine fun at the sport that has come to mean so much to us. In hindsight, it does appear that the Governments of the region did not take the time to understand what they were signing nor the implications for our sport-loving peoples. They seemed so anxious to appear to be sports lovers themselves especially as such an approach always seems to win votes.
Small wonder then that the cricketing authorities were always quick to point out that they were authorised to implement the harsh and un-Caribbean measures for the CWC2007 because our Governments had already signed in support of them.
The LOCs across the region introduced a number of intense restrictions on our cricket lovers and without exception hid behind the ICC as the one to whom blame should be apportioned.
The reality is much different.
Former West Indies cricket captain, Sir Viv Richards, appealed to the authorities insisting that by the application of so many restrictions they would run contrary to the behavioural norms of our peoples at international cricket matches, but no one seemed eager to listen.
Others also came out very early and appealed for good sense to prevail but again no one wanted to listen.
Here at home, we had members of our LOC seeking to explain to the public that this is how it is done in the international arena, an arena in which they never had any organisational experience but about which they claimed sudden knowledge and authority. Representatives of our LOC were quick to defend the harsh restrictions. They turned their backs on years of history of the sport in our region and the way in which we have come to celebrate the sport.
The security took away the school children’s box juices and dumped them in the garbage bins and felt that they were somehow justified.
We had so many restrictions that we tied up ourselves beyond belief.
Interestingly here at home, the average man in the street may well have heard more about the restrictions put in place for our goat cook matches than about the players who were coming. The LOC generated absolutely no excitement about the matches being played here. Instead, they turned off the vast majority of our sports lovers by their seemingly heavy handed restrictions. They may well have engaged more in Restrictions Management as opposed to Sports Marketing and Sports Management.
Among the LOCs were too many inexperienced personnel. Too many of them were political appointees. Too many of them were not exposed to any sort of planning and/or involvement in the preparatory exercise for major international sporting events of this nature. Too many of them were too embarrassed to seek out assistance and/or advice from those at home in each of the territories who had such experience. Too many of them were fearful of the ICC.
Too many of them did not know any better and so could not muster any sort of challenge to the ICC or the WICB. Too many of the weaklings on the LOCs were too busy enjoying their new-found status that they simply did not bother themselves to preserve our otherwise treasured culture.
In the midst of all of this the West Indies Cricket Board, WICB did nothing to stem the tide. Perhaps its members were too busy counting the predicted financial windfall from hosting the Cup and the possibility that the WICB would eventually emerge from the financial RED.
Restrictions Lifted
The major restrictions have been removed from the CWC2007. Mac Fingall will have Gravy at his side at Barbados’ Kensington Oval. The party has begun at this late stage when all of those who hosted before now suffered so badly from their own insipid and regretful weakness.
In some cases, we are hearing that ticket prices have suddenly dropped. Where not so long ago we were being told that tickets were sold out we now have the sudden emergence of thousands of tickets for just about everywhere.
That sounds very much like here at home and the promotion for the England versus Australia goat cook match.
Malcolm Speed, CEO of the ICC has made it clear that the prices affixed to the CWC2007 tickets were not the work of the sport’s international governing body. Speed insisted that the ICC always allow the host countries to affix prices based on their own reading of the economies within which they operate. It is not a top-down decision by the international sports body.
This statement by Speed apportions blame squarely on the shoulders of the CWC2007 Organising Committee and through that organisation to the WICB. This means that Chris Dehring and his seemingly high-flying CWC2007 organisation as well as Ken Gordon and his entire WICB Board must accept full responsibility for the untenable situation that obtained for a majority of the matches played thus far.
The ICC and the CWC2007 Organisers have suddenly capitulated in the face of declining crowds and the embarrassment suffered everywhere that has played host to everything, from goat cook warm-up matches to the actual competition.
How now do the LOCs around the region feel after having duped themselves into the rather sorry state that placed them at the mercy of annoying fans everywhere?
They lost themselves on the altar of status expediency.
The words of Chalkdust’s calypso remains true today and can be applied to our LOC and the others around the region, “Dem people laughin’ at we”.
West Indies
A brief look at the West Indies cricket team would leave us just where we were before the CWC2007.
The likes of Clive Lloyd and others who dared to suggest that we could win the Cup here at home and become the first host nation to win the Cup could only have been playing some kind of mind games with themselves. They certainly did not fool the Caribbean people.
The West Indies came into CWC2007 ranked number 8th and declining, not rising. Our recent performances showcased the barrenness of the cricket talent cupboard which itself appeared to be in tatters, probably from an abundance of termites.
The fact that we were ghosting the competition allowed our emotions to run high, so high that in fact some actually believed that a miracle would take place and somehow we would defy the statistical evidence of our years of poor performances and win the Cup.
There was never a chance of us getting beyond the Super 8s.
Our Caribbean peoples cannot possibly be disappointed. The poor performance should have been expected. The players on today’s West Indies team have never displayed any genuine pride on or off the field of play nor do they seem possessive of any sense of the liberative role that the game has played for us as a people.
As expected the captain will have to take the blame for the team’s performance but there has not been a single member who has displayed a desire to win on the field of play. This is as it should be. But what is new about this?
Did we not know the captain’s limitations in respect of his approach to field placing?
What choices were available to the selectors?
Prior to the competition, I insisted that we are consistently inconsistent in our approach to the game. Our poor performance during the CWC2007 is very consistent with the way we have played the game in the past several years.
We keep referring to those ‘golden years’ while ignoring that the nature of Caribbean society has changed significantly and the young sportspeople of today’s West Indies cricket team seem woefully deficient in terms of character.
If the WICB were to ever reveal some of the horror stories about the conduct of many of our young cricketers they would make many a head spin in awe.
Close Up Shop
The WICB has no genuine development strategy for the future of the sport in the region. The leadership, if one could call it that, has failed to impact the process of development in any way.
The presence of Bennett King and his team has not done anything to change this approach and we have been sold out here at home yet again, with no one on the team expressing shame or embarrassment.
Do not at all be surprised that they do not even watch the rest of the competition.
As a Caribbean people, we should be rallying together and issuing a clarion call for the immediate resignation of the WICB, a thoroughgoing investigation into all aspects in all countries of the hosting of the CWC2007, the firing of the entire cricket team, including management in all aspects and a rethinking of how the game should be developed in our region.
The Impact on the Game
For all intents and purposes, the CWC2007 has given the death-knell to the game of cricket in the Caribbean.
It has succeeded in turning off many of our youths and children from the sport rather than attract them to it. It has allowed many of our youths to justify their shift towards the likes of football, basketball and athletics, even rugby, as opposed to cricket.
It has justified our peoples’ absence from the regional cricket tournaments – Carib Cup and KFC Cup. It has justified the patrons’ decision not to pay the top dollar that was once requested by the LOCs to attend CWC2007 matches.
Rather than lift the stature of the sport of cricket in the Caribbean our slipshod approach to hosting the Cup may well have helped to bury it in shame.
