The West Indies management must change from inside out

Dear Mr. Editor
RECENTLY we wrote to you describing West Indies’ myopic view of itself as an organisation. Following the publication of the letter, we have received nearly 455 responses via phone messages, text, email and social media shares. The letter was only published yesterday, January 20, 2022. We believe that is a good indication that the letter was having the intended effect.

As such, we I will use this opportunity to highlight a few other issues that are constantly being discussed in rum shops, cricket grounds, on social media, amongst friends, professionals and fans.

First I want to respond to Viv Richards portrayal of the organisation’s failure. I am confident that Viv did not intend to criticize the West Indian Cricket Board for their failure to monitor, supervise, evaluate and recommend necessary as actions to improve the pitch conditions. Yes, he suggested that the problem NOW, is that our wickets are the reason we are not performing. I wonder how Jimmy Adams and company feel about Viv’s comments. I am equally confident they are angry as hell about Richard’s observation and wish he had not said those things.

What do you think is going on here? Sounds like Viv is blaming the men who prepare the wickets. One cannot blame the low level grounds keepers for preparing bad pitches. In fact preparing pitches is a science and requires significant knowledge and experience. Curators they are called, and countries like England hire only the best in the business. Here is a look at what a grounds staff must know: the nature of soil, type of soil, the soil ability to retain moisture under various conditions. For example, how much moisture will this wicket retain after the rains have passed? How will the pitch behave after the covers have been removed? And when watering the wicket, a curator must follow specific formulas that maximise a combination of soil, water, sunshine, humidity, and rolling. Which rollers to use? What is the output going to look like once watered, and rolled. Curators of golf courses are similarly trained and educated so that they can deliver the best conditions on the golf course, which often resembles the surface of a pool table. Curators are paid handsome salaries in exchange for the years of experience and education.

Let’s compare how our people of the Caribbean stack up against their English counter parts. Or perhaps we should just let the reader explore that for themselves. My observations about grounds staff in the Caribbean are that most of the staff are running onto the field barefooted, or pants torn, cut, ragged clothes. Is this an indication of how we treat our grounds people? Do these images convey that they are poorly paid? Do these images convey a sense of professionalism like the English who are in uniform? My observation leads to this question: Where are these individuals coming from? Have they been handpicked from bystanders on the street corner to come and do a day’s work? They could not have been part of an organised team of grounds staff, could they?

Following these observations, the readers will then ask “what is the structure of the grounds staff? Who is the director? Who supervises him? What are the accountabilities and deliverables he is responsible for? Is he a contractor to the West Indies organisation? If so what are the expectations in terms of creating a playing surface that ensures satisfaction from both teams. Again, I focus on standards and benchmarking to evaluate these performances. Are we even aware that such metrics exist and can be used in monitoring day to day operations?

If I was Viv Richards I would have knowledge about how the West Indies goes about managing the ground staff. Why has he not shed any light on the issue? To suggest the wickets are not prepared properly also suggests that West Indies management is ultimately responsible for the bad wickets. Yes or no? Ask yourself, if you have a gardener who is doing a bad job with your lawn will you continue to use him? Or if you do decide to hire someone new, I am sure you would explain that the previous gardener did a bad job; moreover, you would establish specific expectations, or deliverables, before hiring the new guy, correct?

According to Mr. Richards and several others like the incoming Chairman of selection for Guyana cricket, Rabindranaught Seeram, they all believe that the wickets are the main cause for failures. Yes, I did have a video call last week with Mr. Seeram and he is resigned to the same idea of Richards, but like Richards, Seeram had no solution to the problem. It is not clear how and why prominent individuals continue to identify problems of the West Indies cricket, but do not offer solutions. Is that not a strange thing?

Prominent people within the West Indies organisation have been given responsibilities like a management role without knowing a single thing about management. And in those roles, their lack of education and experience quickly begins to show. We see in Pollard’s case that he has not been trained how to give a press conference, and so we see regular evidence of it on TV.

When this happens, we look the other way when it comes to validating, verifying their actual experience in grounds management. Instead, a man with a lawn mover and weed wacker gets a contract for cutting grass on various Georgetown grounds. Cutting grass is one thing and you do not need a college or university education to be successful, but to deliver world class playing surfaces do need a tonne of experience, and knowledge. Unfortunately, the weed wacker man gets a bigger contract to prepare wickets… and so the issue can be understood throughout the region.

Now if you want to know why our pitches are not meeting international standards, look no further. Ask, however, how or when does West Indies management get involved at the granular level to evaluate the problem. Have you ever seen a team of management experts at your local ground talking to ground staff? No. How then will management be able to understand this problem? To fix a problem, one must understand it. Sitting in your offices and staring at computers, or relying on what local so called experts are saying will not deliver the information that will lead to change.

And speaking of change, to regain the support of millions of fans, the West Indies management must change from inside out. Resignations should be pouring in, or heads rolling. Competent people who care about our cricket are out there. Find them. It’s time to end this global embarrassment. Let new people establish management standards, accountability, performance expectations and tying performance at every level to compensation. Team failures mean management failure. Teams are operating on management decisions like what data the analyst give players before a match.

Finally, we must stop placing blame, for players are only a partially responsible for any success or failure. Statisticians, analysts, psychologists, coaches and captains must all take responsibility. Everyone mentioned here plays a part in the end result. Analysts in particular, must be evaluated and monitored because I strongly believe they are causing much of the mental problems and lack of clarity for players. I believe that we are trying to emulate what top teams are doing but we do not know what we are doing simply because we put people in positions that they are unqualified for.

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