Dear Editor,
The people who control West Indies cricket have lost all pride. Sir Andy Roberts and Sir Viv Richards, two of the greatest cricketers ever, have tried unsuccessfully to reason with them. The selectors have designed policies that will now and in the future make it impossible to select their best team, and most of the journalists who know of the predictable consequences of such policies, no longer care enough to indict the administrators who are content to see six hundred people per day watch a Test match. Not only is there a rift in the Caricom camp, but their dissolution plan for the WICB will take years. The demotion to a second tier that the administrators seem willing to accept as conceived by a man who by describing West Indians as suited to T-20 cricket, has disqualified himself from his job as CEO of the ICC, will result in a further loss of pride. Notwithstanding Sir Viv’s description of the help he had from a psychologist early in his career, the most talented players perform with so little mental preparation that even they seem not to belong. Bravo and Samuels are the most obvious examples. Some so-called fans will soon urge that they be dropped which would, no doubt, make things worse. The administrators are not even embarrassed that there are more foreign than local broadcasters doing the games. I watch Peter Mathews who follows the team all over the place, much more than even I do, and wonder whether perhaps the administrators can be motivated by having some pity for him. Just how can people be so cynical ‒ or is stupid the right word?
Yours faithfully,
Romain Pitt
