Two years ago, the Jamaica Gleaner, one of the West Indies’ oldest and most respected newspapers, seriously advocated in an editorial following the West Indies’ indifferent performances in the first World Cup staged on their own patch that the subsequent tour of England be cancelled, that they withdraw from international assignments for three years and undertake only matches against ‘A’ teams while systems were put in place to raise standards to previous levels.
It came after several years of humiliating decline brought the West Indies from the summit of Test cricket to near rock bottom. Repeated changes of board presidents and chief executives, of team managers, coaches and captains had made little difference.
The Gleaner, like the majority of West Indians, recognised that drastic measures were necessary. Even so, the paper’s proposal seemed outrageous and ill-considered, disrespectful of the glorious history of West Indies cricket and an affront to its host of legendary players who had graced the game.
After the thrashings at the hands of England over the past month, mainly through the team’s marked apathy, such a scheme, as radical and hurtful as it is, doesn’t seem quite so far-fetched after all.
It was simply the latest in a sequence that stretches back at least a dozen years.
There will be no upheavals, of course, and the West Indies will continue to struggle to regain their reputation against superior opponents. But it would be wrong to take it for granted.
A decision to hop off international cricket’s giddying merry-go-round, even for a while to regain equilibrium, would have to be taken by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
It could, as the Gleaner anticipated, lift the quality of the game in these parts to previous levels but it could, just as easily, kill it. It is a gamble no administration would willingly take.
Nor would the International Cricket Council (ICC) be party to such a move. It did sanction Zimbabwe’s request to temporarily drop out of Test cricket but there were other considerations, mostly political, attached to that decision.
Even as the West Indies’ status has plummeted following their prolonged period of domination through the 1980s, the universal, and honest, opinion is that the restricted world of cricket needs the West Indies for the distinctive vitality of their players and fans and for the brilliant individual world-class players and entertainers they still produce.
Every hint at a revival, such as the recent recapture of the Wisden Trophy from England in the Caribbean, is enthusiastically greeted everywhere.
In their pomp, in the 1960s under Frank Worrell and in the 1980s under Clive Lloyd, no teams have been more brilliantly ruthless, more universally popular or filled with more legends of the game. A West Indies team, even as inept as those of the past decade, out of Test cricket is an unthinkable concept.
Or is it? There are increasingly obvious signs that there are consequences for such continuing mediocrity. They cannot be ignored.
It is a reality that the WICB, the players and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) need to be conscious of as they argue among themselves over selfish trivialities that are central to the problem.
England and Australia altered their itineraries in the 1960s to accommodate more home series of five, and once six, Tests against the West Indies. They are now down to four in England, three in Australia. India, the new powerhouse, have not hosted them for six years. In contrast, England now recognise South Africa and India as “icon” series, each guaranteed five Tests, and Australia rate their Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series against India above the once revered Frank Worrell Trophy.
Instead of traditional venues in England such as the Oval, in the heart of West Indian London, and Trent Bridge, the West Indies were shunted up to Chester-le-Street on their last two tours, a Test venue they share with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
Australia hasn’t placed a West Indies Test at its two most eminent grounds, the MCG and the SCG, for two series now.
Defeats in two days, as in 2004 in Leeds, and in three, as at Lord’s in the just-ended series and at several other overseas venues, leave host boards unhappy at the vast sums lost in gate receipts (300,000 pounds was the estimate at Lord’s).
Although shelved for the time being, there remains a proposal at the ICC for dividing Test cricket into two divisions. There is no doubt where the present West Indies would be.
And, given their modest records in the shorter forms of the game, the West Indies had to go through a qualifying round for the last Champions Trophy in India in 2006, even though they were 2004 champions, and have been seeded in a group with Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland for the second World Twenty20 Championship that starts here on Friday.
Then there was Chris Gayle’s comments on Test cricket a few weeks ago that, however much he claims to have been misrepresented, did more damage to the West Indies’ cause than he would have imagined. He is, after all, the captain. If Tests no longer mean more than 20/20 to him why should fellow members of the ICC seek to protect the West Indies’ position.
Any doubt about the continuing threat to their place in international cricket should have been erased by statements by International Cricket Council (ICC) president David Morgan and Cricket Australia’s chief executive James Sutherland last January.
“There is no reason why a team should have to play Test matches just because it is a full member of the International Cricket Council,” Morgan said. “If a team is not gaining anything from the experience, then perhaps it might be better to settle for one-day international status.”
Sutherland said: “With the growth in the 20/20 market, it is important to take the clutter out of the game. We need to make sure we are playing cricket for quality’s sake, not for quantity, and in recent times I’m not sure that the quality has always been there.”
Morgan and Sutherland were both referring specifically to Bangladesh but their comments were relevant to the West Indies as well. The West Indies and Bangladesh, both at the bottom of the ICC’s rankings, contest two Tests and three ODIs in the Caribbean in July. It is a series even more crucial to the West Indies than to Bangladesh.
All concerned must realise that it is as serious as that.
