CRICKET, the last thread of unity and pride for the people of the English-speaking Caribbean, appears to be dangling in a precarious state and may even burst soon if those who are in charge of managing the game, which has put us on the international map and brought so much joy and pride to us and the cricketing world, continue to perform in the current ridiculous and disgusting manner.

Over the eight decades that the West Indies have been involved in international cricket, it has had several troublesome periods but was able navigate safely through those difficult periods and emerge at the top of the international cricketing ladder.

Unfortunately, the current West Indies cricket crisis has been with us for an excruciatingly long period, and a major cause of this – widely acknowledged by all and sundry – is the downright stupid, illogical and biased actions by the West Indies Cricket Board/Selectors.
To begin with, a coach was appointed who has no outstanding credentials in any department of the game and seems to be entrapped with biases, one of the qualities which no coach should have.

How can you have a coach advising cricketers who have a far superior knowledge of the game than him? How can you have a coach whose international cricketing ‘experience’ is below mediocre?

How can you appoint a person as captain when he does not even merit a place in the team?
It really boggles the mind and therefore this would partially explain why West Indies cricket has been in the cesspool for long and it appears that there will be no light at the end of the tunnel.

But one of the most unpalatable and obnoxious actions of the Board recently was the sacking of the three most senior players of the team, one of them among the top rated batsmen in the world, with the explanation that they are rebuilding the team with a bunch of youngsters. Nothing is wrong with rebuilding a team.

It is obvious that when you are rebuilding a young team, you must have an infusion of young blood, but that does not mean that your best players have to be sacked and replaced by totally green players.

Anyone with an iota of intelligence and deep commitment to the game would know that the best way to rebuild a team is to have a mixture of top class experienced players and young talent. The experienced players would impart their invaluable skills and knowledge on to the young players and also help to guide and instill confidence in them.

Have we forgotten that no other than Clive Lloyd said, in the second World Cricket Cup final in 1979, that if Rohan Kanhai was not at the other end he did not know what would have happened, which was a clear reference to Kanhai’s experience which saved the day, even though Lloyd himself made a swashbuckling 123 not out.

Isn’t it therefore ludicrous and puzzling that we have some of the greatest players that have graced international cricketing arena, who are in no way involved in the administration and management of our cricket in recent years, except for short periods.

Yet these same players have performed excellently coaching in other countries. Kanhai coached in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), while Sobers coached in Sri Lanka. And it would be recalled that it was Sobers who exhorted that the Sri Lankans would rise up to be one of the top cricketing nations because of the immense talent they possess.

But these two West Indian legends and many others do not have a place in managing West Indies cricket.

The recent revelations by Chris Gayle, Chanderpaul and to a lesser extent Sarwan, tell us the whole story of what is wrong with West Indies cricket and why it is getting worse by the minute rather than improving. We are now ranked below Bangladesh. Isn’t this disgraceful? Can we get lower than this?

In the days when our cricket was being managed by past cricketing greats such as Sir Clyde Walcott, Jeffrey Sollemeyer, Allan Rae, Joe Solomon, Gerry Gomez, etc, we were at the top of the internnational cricketing arena. Indeed, there were problems periodically, but we never dropped to such a disgraceful level.

The fact of the matter is that you need people who played the game at the international level and performed excellently to manage the game.

What we have today is a bunch of hopeless and egoistic people who are more interested with the perks and privileges associated with the management of cricket instead of the development of the game.

They have badly hurt the esteem of our cricketers and the people of the region.
Therefore, in the interest of West Indies cricket, they should gracefully bow out and gave a chance to those who have the knowledge, experience, skills, passion and the love for and commitment to West Indian cricket.