West Indies Cricket Board CEO Michael Muirhead has defended the Board’s decision not to sanction the two cricketers who made themselves unavailable for the Test series against Bangladesh, beginning today. Neither Mr Muirhead nor the WICB has named the players but there is no need to be coy. The missing names from the Test squad are Trinidadian off-spinner Sunil Narine and Jamaican all-rounder André Russell, who have opted instead to represent Kolkata Knight Riders in the Champions League Twenty20 competition in India. The WICB has stated that “The players’ decisions will not have any deleterious effect on consideration for future West Indies selection.” Mr Muirhead has explained that the Champions League has an ICC-approved window on the international schedule and the West Indies “have never played cricket this late in the season” and “normally players are on leave and we have infringed on that break and it happens that it also clashes with the Champions League.” He has therefore described the timing of the Bangladesh series as an “anomaly” caused by the need to accommodate the Caribbean Premier League and has stressed that the WICB’s “West Indies First” policy still holds and will be in full effect for England’s tour next year… barring any other anomalies, of course.
As reasonable as Mr Muirhead strives to sound, the WICB continues to make a hash of managing schedules and the competing demands on players’ loyalties, not least when T20 and big money are involved.
After the disappointing Test series loss to New Zealand in June, there was cause for cautious optimism when, a month ago, the WICB named a new selection panel, chaired by our most decorated former captain, Clive Lloyd, and including another legend, Courtney Walsh. There was also widespread relief, joy even, when, shortly after, the WICB announced that it and coach Ottis Gibson had “mutually agreed to terminate their association with immediate effect.”
Then came the news that, as recommended by director of cricket Richard Pybus, a system to ensure uniformity of coaching across the region would be introduced in parallel with a professional franchise system, both intended to improve regional standards in first class and one-day cricket. The winds of change seemed to be blowing. But several observers, including Tony Cozier, counselled patience regarding the high expectations surrounding the new selection panel. Obviously, change will take time, even if the Bangladesh tour provides a soft landing for Mr Lloyd and company. And there was general dissatisfaction with the timing of Mr Gibson’s departure.
As Mr Cozier has pointed out, the WICB had more than five weeks to replace the coach after the New Zealand tour in time for the Bangladesh series. Instead, they announced Mr Gibson’s departure just a day before the opening one day international, resulting in “the unsatisfactory situation” of team manager Richie Richardson doubling up as interim coach until there is a permanent appointment. Mr Cozier has judged the Board to be “shoddy” in its timing, made worse by its “familiar double-speak,” with the delay “accompanied by the ambiguity and confusion that are other hallmarks of the way the WICB conducts its affairs” – in sum, a harsh indictment by the normally diplomatic dean of West Indies cricket writers.
And all this is compounded by the fact that there are tough tours to India and South Africa ahead and the World Cup in February, with no sense of urgency imparted by the WICB.
As for Mr Pybu’s good intentions, the jury is still out. Last Friday’s editorial (Cricket and regional pride) seemed to be grappling with reconciling the need for the new professionalism that Mr Pybus advocates with the rebranding of national teams as franchises and the inevitable erosion of national identity. Well, if the player mobility being displayed by Messrs Narine and Russell is symptomatic of this type of professionalism then, clearly, pride in representing one’s country and the West Indies ‘nation’ no longer has the same meaning for the new breed of professional cricketer. Moreover, even as administrators and players alike continue to pay lip service to the notion of Test cricket as the highest form of the game, if the WICB does nothing meaningful to bring the crowds back to Test matches and cannot improve its grasp of the international cricket calendar at the very least, many more cricketers will be lured away by the razzmatazz of T20 and the jingle-jangle of the cash registers.
This newspaper has been consistently critical of the stewardship of the regional game by the WICB, with its serial bungling and lack of transparency and accountability, and the sense that it is in thrall to interests inimical to the sustainability of cricket in all its formats. It is unfortunate but not surprising that, just when the WICB seems to be promising a brave, new world, the latest developments suggest that very little has changed in the culture of that institution.
