The endless controversy in West Indies cricket
Bottomless pit
These are just more symptoms of an incurable illness.
Not a terminal ailment, mind you, because West Indies cricket is not going to die just so. Yet as painful as it is to comprehend, the overwhelming evidence of more than a decade of struggle on the field and incessant turbulence off it virtually ensures that West Indies will continue to languish among the ranks of the mediocre for the foreseeable future.
As per usual whenever some controversy erupts, as it invariably does almost every Monday morning, the public and media alike are obsessed with the personality clashes, so ignoring the greater reality that all of these convulsions are merely confirming that the slide from the summit shows no sign of slowing down and, in fact, may be accelerating to the level where the trials, travails and infrequent triumphs of the former champions will become increasingly irrelevant to a disillusioned populace.
The responses to this latest episode are no different to ones of the past weeks and months, yet every time we seem to react with shock and disbelief, as if this was totally out of the blue and that all we need to do is make a really concerted effort to solve this particular problem and all will be well again. How short our memories are.
Chris Gayle is either hailed for speaking out against the gross incompetence of the West Indies Cricket Board or dismissed as just another boldfaced Jamaican troublemaker who should never have gotten the captaincy job ahead of our boy Daren Ganga in the first place.
Mike Findlay, the tour manager, is pilloried for his role in sanctioning the new captain's tour diary entry, while everyone comes off the long run in hurling every conceivable insult in the direction of the WICB.
It's really true what they say about the more things change, the more they remain the same. The personalities and embarrassing fiascos may be different, but the theme remains steady: players and administrators at odds, nurturing a poisonous cloud of suspicion and mistrust that shows no signs of lifting anytime soon.
How is it possible for any meaningful progress to be made in this environment?
Yet millions, obsessed as they are with the cult of the personality that is so evident in almost every aspect of public life in these tiny territories, will hold fast to their belief that once this crop of incompetents is dispensed with and Ken Gordon is replaced by a favourite cricketing legend or a highly-touted visionary leader then, sooner rather than later, we'll be well on our way back up to the top.Gordon is a failure, of course, while the integrity of some members of his inner circle at the board must be open to question given the ease, speed and regularity with which information from confidential meetings are leaked into the public domain.
This betrays a house divided unto itself, with grown men pretending to accept collective responsibility only to be sneaking around like rats trying to undermine each other for their own parochial purposes.
On principle alone they should all go, but that would still leave the same complex, archaic structure that is unworkable in a flourishing culture of selfishness and shortsightedness.
Everyone keeps saying it is impractical to consider shutting down the whole thing for a couple months and developing an administrative system that is less cumbersome and more transparent. It is too radical, too impractical and, in truth, will not happen because enough influential people like things just the way they are.
But have any of the many changes in personnel made any difference over the past 12 years? From former greats to successful businessmen, all have failed in various capacities, yet we keep waiting for that anointed one to lead us out of the valley of mediocrity.
All of which makes the players and the Players Association look like valiant heroes battling the many world-class opponents out there on the field and the evil empire that would seek to enslave and humiliate them.
Yet it is only against the backdrop of the gross incompetence of the WICB that WIPA and its membership have any substance. By any other metre rule they have been a consistent source of embarrassment at home and abroad, the four-Test series in England being just the latest of the many sound whippings administered to the Caribbean squad since 1995.
Long before the Cable and Wireless-Digicel dispute and the agitation of Dinanath Ramnarine, the West Indies were being pummeled from pillar to post. The Brian Lara fanatics who would have us believe that it wasn't so bad before the unexpected departure of the "Prince" are either deliberately dishonest or really know nothing of even the recent history of West Indies cricket. Conversely, the early evidence suggests that those convinced that his exit would herald a new, brighter era are way off the mark.
Even if we were to wake up tomorrow to find the WICB and WIPA happy like pappy and everything settled once and for all, who really believes that a stable, united West Indies team will fare significantly better in South Africa at the end of the year and then at home to Sri Lanka and Australia in 2008? WIPA only looks good or has a bargaining leg to stand on because the WICB is just so consistently, unbelievably bad.
This long, steep drop has been quite distressing. More disheartening, though, is the realisation that the bottom is nowhere in sight.
© Trinidad & Tobago Express
