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By Fazeer Mohammed |
Port of Spain, T&T, March 28, 2005: Who would not want to be a member of the senior men's West Indies cricket team? In its present incarnation, it is, without question, the dream job.
Extremely attractive remuneration package, even if payment isn't always on time. Wonderful travel opportunities. Accommodation in the very finest hotels in the world, chauffeur-driven service everywhere and, for those so inclined, no shortage of casual companions, whether of the intimate or back-slapping variety.
But the huge cherry on top of the already thick layer of icing is that there is no real accountability, no meaningful consequences for poor performance on the job. On the contrary, there is an unlimited supply of apologists ready to offer their services free of charge. From political leaders to leaders of business and industry to itinerant pavement dwellers, the West Indies cricket team is a sacred institution. Those contributing to its existence-administrators, coaches, officials, sponsors-are the ones designated to take the licks when the team performs poorly.
However to castigate the team itself, especially if it is led by a son of the territorial soil, is to invite the wrath of a nation upon the obviously deranged soul.
Forget about defeat after heart-breaking defeat or indignity piled high on a mountain of humiliation, don't you dare stretch out a pen, cursor or microphone even in mild disappointment in the direction of any one of our merry band of untouchables as they head off to their favourite watering holes to celebrate another loss with like minds.
Of course, any individual with just a drop of burgundy (the West Indies colour, not the wine) blood coursing through his veins will know who is ultimately to blame, the West Indies Cricket Board.
That festering monstrosity of greed and incompetence.
A collection of bumbling dunderheads who spend all of their waking lives conspiring against our gallant heroes, who are apparently all sworn to some secret code to desecrate the very temple they claim to protect and preserve.
Where's the CIA when you need them? Call those caring folks up at Marli Street right now because you don't have to plant an operative within the Board's deceitful ranks to recognise that there is the hint of an Al Qaeda cell somewhere in the grimy corridors of the WICB's offices at Factory Road in St John's, Antigua.
An abundance of exaggeration to emphasise a point? Really? Not if the word on the street and via the many media outlets in this country are anything like an accurate reflection of popular sentiment.
Yet while the many failings of the Board and the opportunism and intransigence of the sponsors are being thoroughly ventilated, is it really true to say that the players are all blameless in this latest unsavoury episode in the multi-coloured history of our cricket, that they are the poor, unwilling victims of a multi-national power-play?
Even media personnel like myself with limited faculties for sniffing out stories had it thrust in front of us during last year's home series against England that Digicel were about to take over from Cable and Wireless as the team's sponsors. Is it then credible to accept that the players who signed new personal deals with the outgoing sponsors then were blissfully unaware of these developments and regarded the lucrative contracts as just superbly-timed offers rewarding them for sterling contributions to the game?
Please.
And what of all this dismissive talk about a second-rate team that will disgrace us by losing in two days in the First Test in Guyana? Yes, the principle of fielding the best possible team (not best available or eligible as the Board are trying to present it) must be upheld.
But to conveniently gloss over the glaring fact that the best possible team has taken West Indies cricket to its lowest ever level with an ever-lengthening list of shameful displays at home and abroad betrays a one-eyed view of the game that contributes significantly to the mess that we are in.
You can only solve a problem if you first acknowledge that one exists, and the general impression being created is that the on-field performances are the fault of everyone except the players.
Most of the "C&W Seven" have been part of it all. Whitewash Test series losses to every other nation except Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, mutilated in two days in a Test at Leeds, obliterated for Test innings TOTALS of 97, 81, 61, 54, 51 and 47, all within the last seven-and-a-half years.
Used to be that such humiliation was dismissed as a flash in the pan. Then manager Wes Hall described the innings defeat in Kingston ten years ago to Australia that ended the West Indies' 15-year reign of invincibility as the "aberration of Sabina Park."
The former fearsome fast bowler was correct at the time, but now the aberration has become the norm, with Hall himself falling victim to the slings and arrows of a merciless and irrational public during his two-year tenure as president of the WICB. But I suppose even former Test players like Jeffrey Stollmeyer, Sir Clyde Walcott, Allan Rae and Hall were all converted to the devious ways of the Board before they were appointed to head this despicable organisation.
They all make for suitable Good Friday bobolees. I totally agree that the players should not be similarly desecrated, because they spend most of the other 364 (365 in a leap-year) days having the stuffing beaten out of them by most other international teams.
They need a break