By Lennox Aldred

KINGSTON, Jamaica, (CMC – In a sobering and brutally honest assessment, two former West Indies and Jamaica cricketers have declared that the road to redemption for the region’s cricket will be a long one, with one stating it could take “a generation or two” to restore its former glory.
Mark Neita, a former Jamaican batsman, and Nehemiah Perry, a former West Indies off-spinner, delivered a stark critique of the system, pointing to a catastrophic collapse at the grassroots level, a coaching crisis, and the damaging influence of T20 cricket on young players.
Neita did not mince words whilst speaking on a radio talk show recently, when describing the state of the game in his homeland.
“And it might sound really terrible, but our cricket is even worse than we think,” Neita stated. “Our cricket, regionally, is really bad, but in Jamaica it’s really, really bad.”
He highlighted a shocking decline in participation, revealing that the number of schools playing cricket has plummeted from over 90 to “just over 30 in most parishes,” with some areas having no high schools in local competitions. This collapse of the traditional “feeding ground” has left clubs “teetering on disaster.”
“The talent that I used to see come through, it’s just not there,” Neita lamented. He also identified a dual problem with the players who do emerge: a fixation on power-hitting over technique and a critical shortage of qualified coaches.
“The cricket board in Jamaica has not invested in equipping proper coaches,” he asserted.
Echoing concerns over player development, Nehemiah Perry launched a direct attack on the prevalence of T20 cricket at the youth level. He called for a ban on the shortest format for Under-17 and Under-19 teams.
“I don’t believe that our Under-17 or Under-19 should be playing any T20,” Perry said emphatically. “If you don’t master playing forward properly, you can’t defend a stump yet, and you are playing cross-body shot, swing over mid-wicket. How are we going to develop Test cricketers with an attitude like that?”
He prescribed a return to two-day cricket to teach young batters the art of building an innings. Perry also joined Neita in criticising the coaching standards, stating, “I don’t think our coaches are good enough to identify issues and to fix issues. That is the major problem we are having.”
The conversation also turned to the leadership of the senior West Indies team. When asked about current coach Daren Sammy, Neita referred to him as “King Sammy” and compared him to “King Trump,” suggesting an over-inflated status.
“This to me is killing all cricket because cricket is bigger than one person,” Neita commented. “We need to have a real conversation about what will create the future. It has to do with the entire region and the pride of the millions of people who love the game.”