Is West Indies cricket dead ?

[mikesiva]

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has said they're not giving West Indies cricket a penny, until the WICB is wound up, and a new body put in place....

http://www.espncricinfo.com/westindies/ ... 37407.html

[The Professor]

I can't wait to see Cameron, Lloyd and Walsh evicted from WI cricket administration the same way they've evicted all the players that they've fallen out with.

Walsh's collusion in it is the most heartbreaking.

[mikesiva]

Phil Simmons presents his detailed accusations of interference with selection from the likes of Dave Cameron and Richard Pybus....

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/co ... 45337.html

[mikesiva]

'A raft of post-mortems has inevitably followed, yet it remains difficult to foresee where West Indies cricket goes next. The most feasible, if disturbing, answers point to a split into the separate territories that have banded together for over 100 years, or else inevitable demise in Tests, with concentration solely on the shorter formats....Mahabir maintained that the present generation in their 20s would have no recollection of the heady times when West Indies ruled the world. All they know is an entity that languishes near the bottom of the ICC rankings for a couple of decades. His concern is that young fans increasingly favour supporting their individual territories, rather than enduring the embarrassment of West Indies' constant defeats. Six years ago Daren Ganga, then Trinidad and Tobago captain, who played 48 Tests for West Indies between 1998 and 2008, made a similar point. "If you speak to any West Indies player, you will hear them talking about this special affiliation to their country," he said. "When you play for the country that you were born in and brought up in and you sing your national anthem, it brings a different individual spirit to you." There is no such political entity as the West Indies. Its shareholders - Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago and the Windward Islands - are all fully independent mini-nations with their own governments, currencies, flags and anthems. It is a wonder they have held together for over 100 years, since a 1900 tour of England. That unity has become increasingly fragile. More than one player, now unavailable due to their commitments to global T20 franchises, has told me they feel the West Indies they would officially represent is really the WICB. It is an interesting perspective, given the mutual lack of trust between the two.'

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/co ... 51937.html

[sussexpob]

We were told in the 1990's that the Windies were battling against USA based sports, and that the fast bowling stocks were being lost to basketball, the batsman where being attracted to baseball, the culture was changing. Move on two decades, and the best English based Caribbean basketball team is ranked just below Mali and the Central African Republic (ie, right at the bottom of the world pack), I dont think the baseball teams have featured on an international level at all, there are hardly any players in the NFL considering the close proximity geographically (there are a few I am aware of, but none are big players) and despite having a bobsleigh team, Ice Hockey still hasnt penetrated the main stream in Jamaica. So where did they all go if cricket is losing popularity? Soccer? Well Jamaica's last squad had 10 players born in England in it, and I believe if qualification ended for the World Cup tomorrow, they are the only West Indian based team in a qualifying position..... they arent producing any of these either.

The only thing is athletics, but the Diamond league season runs in the cricket offseason (ie, starts when IPL ends, and ends when the English summer season ends and the winter schedules begin). I fail to see how interest is supposedly low due to the competition. It is obviously the teams fortunes.

And if its success or lack of that turns people away, then in short, what does splitting the team into 6 different parts solve?

"We dont have any good players, we cant produce them"......

"Well kill 5 out of 6 available players, and then we will get better"....

[mikesiva]

It is mainly athletics...Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake were promising cricketers, who actually enjoyed cricket more than athletics, until their respective coaches told them to drop cricket, and focus on athletics. Bolt writes about that experience in his book....

And with the success of Keshorn Walcott (javelin) and Jehue Gordon (400m hurdles), Trinidadians who won Olympic and World gold, that country has also seen priorities shift. Athletics is also on the rise in Barbados due to the success of Ryan Brathwaite, and in St Kitts due to the success of Kim Collins.

Training is a year-round thing. Bolt, for example, has posted pics of his training getting under way in Jamaica. The outdoor athletics season in the Caribbean starts in January, and the indoor athletics season starts in Europe in February. It's not just the Diamond League....

Football has always attracted more fans than any other sport, from the days when I've been growing up, so it's not much different now compared to back then. The quality of the football is what's preventing footballers from advancing. Unfortunately, the quality of four-day cricket is nowadays more comparable to football than athletics, these days.

Cricket is still played, but in both Trinidad and Jamaica, more emphasis is given these days to the limited overs version. When I was in Jamaica, we had two national three-day competitions - the Senior Cup and the All-Island League. However, the latter has now been converted into a limited overs version (50-overs and T20), to cater to what the fans want. And who are we to argue with cricketers who want to pursue the more lucrative version?

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sport/T2 ... hire_45815

“You can’t go into a supermarket and say… I used to play for West Indies, I had 10 half-centuries, 15 hundreds, you can’t get groceries like that — you have to live. You can’t be begging on the road, you can’t live off your stats.”

The problem with the WICB is that they are so mired in what they can get out of the system, they've alienated the players and the fans. They answer to nobody - that is the biggest flaw of their structure.

In contrast, the JAAA answers to the government, who tend to take the side of public opinion. So, athletics in Jamaica is more cognisant of people's feelings that cricket administrators, who continue to operate as if they own the sport. Between 1977 and 1995, Jamaica didn't win a single Olympic gold medal. In that time, the JAAA invested in the sport, with government help, and trained sprint coaches around the island, so that every parish, and every major school, at high school and primary school level, had world-class sprint coaches. To date, Jamaica remains the only country in the world with that level of coaching ability at school level. The JAAA also set up developmental track meets in every parish, which have now become fixtures in the sporting calendar. After 1995, Jamaica started reaping the rewards of that investment....

The governments will not invest in the WICB, because, unlike the JAAA, the WICB don't answer to them, and show no inclination of changing their structure so that they do. Instead, the WICB have hired an expensive lawyer to fight CARICOM's insistence that the WICB reform:

http://www.windiesfans.com/index.php?op ... &Itemid=50

A quote:

"I only wish West Indies has a business model that works. How can 20 boards run one business?" - Allen Stanford

Okay, that was Stanford....

But his question is still valid.

The argument is that there will be no improvement under this WICB, so let's see if we can try to do what Jamaican athletics did. Individual countries like Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Guyana can compete with the likes of Ireland and Afghanistan. So what if they're not playing Test cricket? If the Test teams are playing like they are in Hobart, what's the point? At least they won't have the success of the West Indies teams of the 1970s and 1980s hanging around their necks like a millstone. In addition, right now, hardly any fans are interested in Test cricket, so it would be no great loss if Jamaica played an unofficial Test and some limited overs matches against Ireland, and Trinidad did the same with Afghanistan, and Guyana and Barbados did likewise with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

Please note: I'm not personally calling for the dissolution of the West Indies. I'm just presenting the arguments, that are growing stronger every year. I don't see it happening, though. The individual country boards have just as much a vested interest in the ICC handouts as do the WICB....

[sussexpob]

The board has been rotten ever since I have liked cricket, but surely they answer to a dwindling number of people interested? Surely they must realise they are overseeing a disaster and try to sort it?

In contrast, the JAAA answers to the government, who tend to take the side of public opinion. So, athletics in Jamaica is more cognisant of people's feelings that cricket administrators, who continue to operate as if they own the sport. Between 1977 and 1995, Jamaica didn't win a single Olympic gold medal. In that time, the JAAA invested in the sport, with government help, and trained sprint coaches around the island, so that every parish, and every major school, at high school and primary school level, had world-class sprint coaches. To date, Jamaica remains the only country in the world with that level of coaching ability at school level. The JAAA also set up developmental track meets in every parish, which have now become fixtures in the sporting calendar. After 1995, Jamaica started reaping the rewards of that investment....

Very interesting point on potential for separation enabling individual action plans, but has cricket gone to far in these countries to make this possible now? Would Jamaica be interested in pouring resources into cricket given the empowerment and responsibility?

It is mainly athletics...Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake were promising cricketers, who actually enjoyed cricket more than athletics, until their respective coaches told them to drop cricket, and focus on athletics. Bolt writes about that experience in his book....

This is encouraging personally. Surely not all sports people are fit or naturally gifted to be sprinters, so if people are still attracted to the game that play sports with regularity, then a change of politics could lead to a change of result.

[mikesiva]

Those are valid questions, SP, and they're very hard to answer, as you can probably guess....

It does seem that the WICB is fiddling while Rome burns. They have what we in the Caribbean call a plantation mentality...I think you can picture that. They are the owners of the plantation, and the slaves have to do as they say, even though they are driving their estate on to inevitable ruin.

Has the demise gone too far? Is Test cricket lost for good with the new generation, who are more interested in the CPL? Probably....

Would the governments be interested in investing in a product which the fans are not interested in? Maybe not....

Jamaican television will broadcast club football matches:

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sport/TV ... ches_45962

But there's no TV coverage of the PCL.

In terms of sporting ability, it seems that youngsters are more likely to try out for the sports that have fans, and will only gravitate towards four-day cricket when they're not good enough for the other sports, such as athletics, football, local basketball, T20 cricket, and maybe then four-day cricket. By the time they reach four-day cricket, the talent pool is so small....

Mark Nicholas's take:

"Perhaps it now makes more sense for the regions to go it alone. The Professional Cricket League still has the game spread too thinly and "franchises" are a terrible sop - as if a fancy name will change anything. Sometimes it is wiser to turn back time and establish what made things acceptable in the very beginning....A governing board of 17 people seems absurdly overblown. This is made up of representatives from the 16 nations that play under the banner of West Indies. Apparently, recommendations from the Caribbean community (CARICOM) that call for the immediate dissolution of that board are to be thrown out. It is a bizarre situation. One that would benefit from a blank sheet of paper....Fifty-over cricket will almost certainly stay an inter-island affair, including all associates and neighbours in a league then knockout form with each of the four first-class teams seeded. The Caribbean Premier League would surely remain the commercial animal it is now. Of course, the CPL - any national T20 league - is the root of the fastest-growing problem in global cricket. Put simply, it offers a great deal for not much. It is difficult to criticise West Indian cricketers for deserting the insanity that prevails within the West Indies Cricket Board and taking the dollar elsewhere....Yes, other interests suck young talent out of the cricket vacuum and into the ether. From afar, it appears that pitches are not what they once were - slow, low, boring these days. Pride and ambition look to have been lost but defeat after defeat will do that. The plain fact is that the world and the game change. The Caribbean doesn't. It stands resolutely still in time. The problem is that high-quality players are no longer there to cover for this. The cabal formed by India, England and Australia will marginalise every other major cricket-playing nation. The next to be severely threatened will be South Africa. It may be that, genuinely, the cabal cannot see this. But they are blind. The diminished form of Test cricket is before us, crystal clear. If no one really cares, then fine, carry on regardless. But the lowest common denominator will not sustain the most beautiful game."

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/co ... 52847.html

[The Professor]

Holder more positive than most http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia-v ... 54815.html

[mikesiva]

Sadly, it doesn't seem as if any useful information is being given to the press. What we really need to know is the details of the contract for the tour. If the WICB offered a replacement side, and the BCCI refused, unless there is something in the contract forbidding this, then I can't see how the BCCI can press for anything.

Berry said some of his friends said WICB are in big trouble and have no leg to stand on.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricke ... e-end.html

India’s board is suing the West Indian board for $42m – and, according to my learned friends, the West Indies have not got a legal leg to stand on.

It seems that the BCCI are considering "forgiving" the WICB, on certain conditions....

"BCCI has decided to revoke the suspension imposed on bilateral tours with the West Indies by clearing India's tour of the Caribbean in mid-2016. The approval is subject to the WICB committing to complete last year's abandoned tour of India....This was followed by a brief lull as the BCCI itself underwent a quarrelsome transition in its administration with initially the late Jagmohan Dalmiya taking over as board president, followed by Manohar. The change in guard allowed Cameron to buy more time, and he sought an audience with Manohar, on October 17. A ray of hope emerged the next day, after the BCCI's working committee was updated on the WICB request. Besides tendering several apologies, Cameron and WICB CEO Michael Muirhead also conveyed to the BCCI top brass comprising Manohar and board secretary Anurag Thakur its inability to compensate financially. Instead, the WICB expressed its desire to make up for it by touring India for a series in 2017. After the BCCI's annual general meeting on November 9, though, Thakur had remained non-committal. "There is still plenty of time to go and play in West Indies. We will decide at the appropriate time. They met us recently - the CEO of the West Indies Board and the chairman (president) of the West Indies Board. They have given their viewpoint. We will take a call," he had said.'

http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/conte ... 54875.html

[GarlicJam]

Interesting article, by Geoff Lemon, on the banning of the only West Indian journalist (Fazeer Mohammed) covering the current tour from interviewing the Windies cricketers. All because he reckoned that Australian cricketers trained harder than the Windies cricketers.

Symptomatic of the malaise that has cripple the sport in the Caribbean.

[Toby F]

Interesting article, by Geoff Lemon, on the banning of the only West Indian journalist (Fazeer Mohammed) covering the current tour from interviewing the Windies cricketers. All because he reckoned that Australian cricketers trained harder than the Windies cricketers.

Symptomatic of the malaise that has cripple the sport in the Caribbean.

If they will ban Tony Cozier then they will ban anyone. The WICB is a joke, only no one is laughing anymore.

[hopeforthebest]

When I look at the WI I see some talented players but I don't see a team. Clearly the WICB are failing to promote an atmosphere in which a team can prosper.

[Dr Cricket]

Interesting article, by Geoff Lemon, on the banning of the only West Indian journalist (Fazeer Mohammed) covering the current tour from interviewing the Windies cricketers. All because he reckoned that Australian cricketers trained harder than the Windies cricketers.

Symptomatic of the malaise that has cripple the sport in the Caribbean.

If they will ban Tony Cozier then they will ban anyone. The WICB is a joke, only no one is laughing any more.

Holding banned as well, Sky sports should have made a huge fuss about it.
If they weren't so cheap they should have sent their own team for that tour.

[mikesiva]

When I look at the WI I see some talented players but I don't see a team. Clearly the WICB are failing to promote an atmosphere in which a team can prosper.

Therein lies the problem...the West Indies is no longer a team.