The curious case of West Indies' cricket woes

Another unsatisfactory West Indies firstclass season is into its last matchIt has once more proceeded without most of the leading players on simultaneous T20 duties in Bangladesh for West Indies then in the UAE for their IPL franchises or otherwise injuredChris Gayle Darren Sammy Sunil Narine and Dwayne Bravo didnrsquot have a single match Marlon Samuels Andre Russell and Denesh Ramdin one each Kieron Pollard two Kemar Roachrsquos shoulder injury persists after five monthsThere was the usual conspicuous lack of promotion so that public and media interest was again negligible Eight of the 23 matches leading into the challenge final for the WeekesHeadley Trophy between the Windward Islands and Jamaica in St Lucia Barbados had earlier won the roundrobin Presidentrsquos Cup were completed in less than three daysWest Indies great Courtney Walsh centre speaks with captain Darren Sammy left and other players at the Wankhede in 2011 PicAFPSixteen totals were under 150 against 10 over 300 Performances individual and team were erraticIt is a recurring theme that makes it difficult for the West Indies to drag themselves up from the lower rungs of the International Cricket Council ICC Test rankings mdash or for selectors to make considered choicesHas Narines partner emergedHow for instance do they rate the seasonrsquos top runscorer Shacaya Thomas a 25yearold strongly built belligerent opener from Combined Campuses and Colleges CCC who was the only one with more than 500 runs 548 at 4566 with two hundreds Ready for Test cricketOr which spinner alongside Narine to favour for the three Tests against New Zealand in the Caribbean in June that is a battle for sixth place on the ICC table As has been routine for more than a decade those of every sort filled the top 10 places among wickettakersRichard Pybus has a huge taskOnly five newcomers have been introduced in the Test team in the five series since 2012 Narine alone is assured of his place in the series of three Tests against New Zealand in the Caribbean in June that will determine which team moves into sixth position on the ICC tableSuch evidence has finally persuaded the West Indies Cricket Board WICB to acknowledge Test captain Darren Sammyrsquos lament following the most recent heavy successive losses in India and New Zealand that ldquowe cannot continue like thisrdquoAs a consequence of a catalog of sweeping changes proposed by the new director of cricket Richard Pybus and accepted by the WICB directors at their meeting in PortofSpain last month the 2014 firstclass format is likely to be the last in its present formPybus an Englishman was twice Pakistan coach and briefly Bangladeshrsquos His reputation was made in South Africa where he managed and coached at all levels and was twice named provincial coach of the yearHe knew very little about West Indies cricket when appointed last November mdash and viceversa He immediately and wisely set about learning about its past glories and present problemsThe proposals contained in his hefty document under the heading ldquoWest Indies Cricket System Review and Planrdquo are ldquoshaped by interviews and discussions with former West Indies captains and great players from Sobers Griffith Nurse and Hall to the generations of Lloyd Roberts Richardson Walsh and Ambroserdquo There were other former and current players who shared their thoughtsThe relevant points are the ldquoprofessionalisationrdquo of the regional firstclass game and the expansion of the seasonThere would be 90 players under contract 75 with their individual boards 15 with the High Performance and lsquoArsquo squads The objective is to ensure that all the players are available for a new tournament of doubleround cricket over six months as opposed to one round concentrated into six weeks at presentIt wonrsquot come cheapPybus estimates the cost of the new plan to be US28 million for staff and players US750000 for the expansion of the firstclass and oneday competitions US300000 for retainers for the lsquoArsquo squadTo raise such sums he believes sponsorship through naming rights of teams could raise US200000 and naming rights to their stadiums a further US500000ldquoTerritorial boards to source sponsorship for firstclass teams as they do in Australia England South Africa the IPLrdquo he wrote hopefullyGiven that the firstclass series hasnrsquot been sponsored since Carib the Trinidadian brewery ended theirs in 2009 that cricket no longer holds the sporting pride of place it once did in the region and that most of the territories are going through difficult economic times the marketing departments face a difficult taskWhat is more the WICB is ironically competing for the same financial support from private enterprise and governments as the Caribbean Premier League CPL to which it sold its T20 rights last yearFor all that the stark reality is that West Indies cricket is unmistakably in crisis It might just be enough to change attitudes it is either that or ldquocontinue like thisrdquo towards oblivionThe directors even agreed to Pybusrsquo plan for each of the six territories to select their 10 contracted players after which all the others would ldquogo into a draft to equalise the regional distribution of players to the betterment of West Indies cricketrdquo The idea is that within a year all players would be open to a ldquofree markethellipas per best practice in overseas firstclass cricketrdquoWhile the CPL followed the IPL lead and introduced the draft concept in its first year in 2013 it might be a revolutionary concept too far for traditional West Indies cricket that after all comprises a dozen independent nations each protective of its sovereigntyIt was all very well for Narine to turn out for the Guyana Amazon Warriors and Pollard to captain the Barbados Tridents rather than their native Trinidad Red Steel in the inaugural CPL T20 fiesta another for such a switch to extend to intense longstanding interterritorial rivalriesEnglishmen are free to represent several counties Australians to switch states New Zealanders to move between provinces during their careers They are one nationality there are no more than 20 instances over the years of West Indians representing territories other than their own and those have been mainly through residenceIt is a wonder West Indies cricket has survived for more than 100 years as an entity the internal spats that have confronted Caricom the Caribbean trade and economic grouping throughout its comparative infancy typify the potential pitfallsPybusrsquo is not the first such report commissioned by the WICB That prepared by a group headed by the former Jamaica prime minister PJ Patterson presented an equally significant tome in 2007 Its main points were not acted on prompting Patterson to complain that he had spent a couple of years wasting his timeIt has now reached the stage where the WICB cannot afford to treat Pybusrsquo the same way