Dear Editor,
Wasn’t it great when we would awaken in the mornings to hear the radio blaring, “We are the champions, we are the champions, we are the West Indies.” You remember how proud we used to feel? Is “Boy, Marshall is a bad man eh?” or “Richards, well don’t talk bout he.” Wasn’t it great to know that while others were paying we were winning. In the illustrious words of the great and former captain of the West Indies cricket team Mr Clive Lloyd: “Any cricketer worth his salt should try to get a playing contract at one of the counties in England.” And that is what the West Indian players did. Every one of them with salt (read that as talent), got themselves a county cricketing contract. During the time the West Indies was rampaging through the cricketing world, most, if not all of their players were engaged in county cricket. They were paid handsomely while honing their skills, benefiting and enjoying all the coaching techniques and strategies of the county they were representing.
A few names ‒ Somerset: Viv Richards, Joel Gardner; Hampshire: Andy Roberts, Gordon Greenidge, Malcolm Marshall, Warwickshire: Alvin Kallicharran; Brian Lara, Lance Gibbs, Rohan Kanhai; Glamorgan: Roy Fredericks, Gloucestershire: Courtney Walsh; Middlesex: Desmond Haynes; Lancashire: Clive Lloyd, Michael Holding, (also Derbyshire) Carl Hooper (also Kent).
Some English players around the same era ‒ Surrey: John Edrich; Yorkshire: Brian Close/Jimmy Adams (WI); Somerset: Ian Botham; Hampshire: David Gower/Andy Roberts (WI); Middlesex: Mike Gatting; Essex: Graham Gooch.
When the English Cricket Board (ECB) finally decided that the names that played had captivated the crowds they had hoped for, the board announced (and it was not abruptly) one foreign player per county team. That pronouncement began the decline of West Indies cricket. The reservoir was beginning to dry up. There were no more tutors, they had to pick up their gear and leave. The gravy train had come to a halt. The people that make up the WI Cricket Board figured, like Mr Lloyd, that the training of their players by the counties would be ad-infinitum; that they would be the breeding grounds for a talent that does not represent them when it counts. The WICB, like the proverbial ostrich, did what ostriches do.
The ECB had in fact liberated the players.They were given their independence. A word whose meaning politicians cannot come to grips with even to this day. Likewise the people who run the WICB; to them the independence of their players was a responsibility. Now it was incumbent upon them to create something substantial to hold the players’ interest and continue the progress. Did they do anything? Did the WICB, as the people who run things, take this opportunity that independence presented to them, the ability to pave their own and a new way? Our present position in the cricketing world is what we have to show for our independence. Failing to prepare is… you know how that ends. As my wife often points out to me, “We are so third world.” Yes, indeed we are.
Of course the players take the brunt of the disappointment, on and off the field. Waste Indies, horrible WI, woeful West Indies, etc, etc. Past and present pundits calling WI cricket a basket case. Some are calling on past legends who benefited from the English County League to come out of hiding from embarrassment and to assist the present team. Some suggest a psychiatrist, even a soothsayer, along with a hypnotist.
The real reason for the demise is that the crutch that was used all these years to embellish WI cricket had been yanked away, and the batting collapse has continued for a decade-and-a-half. Are we training our own? Are we prepared to continue sending mediocre teams abroad? which begs the question: “Can’t we do something for ourselves, by ourselves for a change? Is it asking too much for a dysfunctional group aka the WICB to come up with anything to benefit the game and the players? I guess the answer to that is no. The Trinidad Express editorial of December 24 said:”Those who have placed themselves in the position of administering it ‒ Cricket ‒ are vision less.” I have always felt that the WICB, past and present, has been sitting on their brains for the past decade-and-a-half. And unless they are removed, nothing will happen.
Yours faithfully,
Milton Bruce
