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Offline dervaig

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Time is running out
« on: March 31, 2008, 11:46:29 AM »
Jimmy Adams's speech March 30th 2008 at the WIPA awards banquet.
Makes for an excellent read!

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Time is running outMon, Mar 31, '08
 
by JIMMY ADAMS

(Full text of an address by former West Indies captain Jimmy Adams at the annual WIPA awards).

It is indeed an honor for me to be here with you here tonight sharing in this evening of celebration, and as a former player I would first like to use this opportunity to say congratulations to all those players who have been nominated for awards tonight and especially to those who have won their various categories. I wish all of you continued success both on and off the field of play.

Ladies and Gentlemen: I stand before you tonight as someone who, first as a player and then as a spectator at close quarters, has found it interesting watching the changing landscape of international cricket over the past few years. So many events have occurred that have had an effect on the game worldwide but with specific bearing on us here in the Caribbean. Most of these events and changes have been driven by an increasingly global marketplace both inside and outside the game. I would like to use this opportunity tonight to make a few observations on our situation here in the Caribbean, in light of what is happening globally within the game, with a view to encouraging those who presently administer our regional sport.

The first and most visible change that has occurred within the modern era has been the rise in influence of television on the world game on the back of which has come an explosion of revenue streams being generated by the game globally. This sequence is not specific just to cricket, but has occurred, and is occurring all across the sporting spectrum.

Another of the key occurrences to affect the game worldwide and certainly here in the West Indies was a decision by the ICC to disband profit-sharing agreements for home series which in effect would allow the home board who were hosting tours to keep all profits (and losses) from a home series. This as you are all now aware was a serious blow for us here in the Caribbean as we were then living off monies earned from the split off profits on our away tours, and were in a way dependent on these funds to help cover the cost of administering the game here in the Caribbean.

Coming a bit closer to the present time, we have seen in the last 5 years the revolutionary impact of the 20/20 version of the game which in four years it has gone from an experiment by the English Cricket Board seeking to hold on to its domestic sponsors, to the global phenomenon that it has now become and I along with many in the game cant help but think that this version of the game will ensure that these past few years will go down as one of the defining eras in the history of the modern game.

These three observations or occurrences can be viewed if you wish, as isolated incidents, or can be seen, as I believe, simply as events DRIVEN BY THE “MARKET AND MARKET FORCES”. e.g. (20/20 cricket was started in the UK as a response to the ECB fighting to come up with a product that would keep disenchanted domestic sponsors involved in the game domestically).

(And the situation with the profit share on home tours was nothing more than the economics of human behaviour with countries with large domestic markets using that fact to leverage stronger financial positions for themselves).
 
I think it would do us well at this point to just remind ourselves:  that in a competitive market you either come to the marketplace to add value or you are going to be in some way be excluded or marginalized from it.

This is not a new occurrence but simply one which, from a West Indies perspective, has only begun to affect us negatively in recent times due to the fact that we have moved away from a position of ‘added value’. I hold to no conspiracy against the West Indies but accept that those who have more to leverage with in any market will simply seek to establish dominant positions for themselves. Please remember that back in the day, we the West Indies, as well as the rest of the then strong established test nations, had no time for the Sri Lankas of this world unless it was a short stopover on the way to India, because inviting them to the Caribbean would have meant a financial loss (no added value) to us here at home.

Now how does all that has been established affect our position now and in the future? Well to make the point as forcefully as I can I need to quickly go over a bit of history to emphasize the point, and you will forgive me for using personal history to do so but it is simply the one I am most familiar with.

Let’s first of all for the sake of this discussion accept that I stand here tonight as someone who eventually became a competent player at international level. And I would like to highlight a few issues that contributed to the achieving of that competence.

a) My first experience of competitive preparation and competition came through a primary school competition in a parish that to this day maintains a strong history of U12 competition in its primary schools.

b) As a 13yr old in 1981 I joined a cricket club in Jamaica that had representing them then two test players and about 8 or 9 past and present first class players. That environment certainly for the next 7 years was to have a huge influence on my development as a player.

c) In 1983 Rohan Kanhai was brought to Jamaica by a group of corporates who had a passion for the game and were desperate to lift the standard of the game in the island. Kanhai took control, not just of the senior, but critically took over our junior teams during his stint in Jamaica, which was to span 15years, and was instrumental in successfully guiding a generation of us, myself included, to both first class and international levels. 

d) like many before me, I made a decision to go and play professionally overseas with the result of that decision being a gaining of maturity and experience beyond what I could have gained at home at the time. 

Now, if we take my family out of the equation, I have just outlined four distinct but informal processes that had a major influence on the development of one competent international player. That in essence was your typical player’s pathway to becoming a part of ‘the product’ (our international team) of that era. I am not attempting to glorify the process, but just want to establish that no part of it was planned, initiated or controlled by our Board.

And please let us stop perpetuating the ignorance that our standards of previous eras were attained simply on the back of raw talent. In the case of every elite player of every generation to represent us, I guarantee you that if you look closely enough you will find processes, whether formal or informal, that were crucial to his development. 

So it is my view as harsh as it may sound: 

THAT OUR ADMINISTRATION HAVE ALL ALONG BEEN PARTICIPATING IN WHAT WAS THEN, AND IS EVEN MORE NOW, A GLOBAL MARKET, CLAIMING ‘OWNERSHIP’ OF A PRODUCT (OUR TEAM), YET TO THIS DAY HAVE FAILED TO CONSTRUCT, IMPLEMENT, OR CONTROL THE PROCESSES CRITICAL TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THAT ‘PRODUCT’. 

This seems to suggest that for near 80 years our administration has served merely as a vehicle on which our team has been taken to the global market and nothing more. 

I WILL SUBMIT FURTHER THAT UNTIL OUR BOARD MAKES THE DECISION, (BY ITS ACTIONS, NOT WORDS), TO TAKE CONTROL OF THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES CRITICAL TO THE RAISING OF STANDARDS HERE IN THE CARIBBEAN, WEST INDIES CRICKET WILL CONTINUE TO STAY AT A LEVEL WHERE IT CAN ONLY REACT DEFENSIVELY TO ANYTHING HAPPENING IN THE GLOBAL MARKET.

In making these points I take nothing away from any of the efforts being made by those in the various territories who have tried, and are trying to bridge this gap. But the fact of the matter is that a West Indies Product, if it is to survive, must be West Indies produced with the planning and implementation emanating outwards towards the territories from an administrative core.

It cannot be the individual territories that start that process. In cricketing terms the leaders of our regional game must accept responsibility and begin the sequence by establishing the vision of what a West Indies ‘product’ must look like at the top of the pyramid and then allow that vision to then influence how they construct our development structure, and where they set their standards right the way down the development chain to grassroots level. 
 
Now my primary purpose tonight is not to point fingers or to seek to cast blame. My first objective is to establish beyond doubt, that we are, and will be for the foreseeable future part of a global cricket environment where only ‘added value’ will be accepted as the currency of the day. Secondly, to make the point that never in our history, rich as it might be, have we ever been in control of the process that has created the product which we have put in that global market. My own story bears this out.

It is my view that we are now experiencing the consequences of the long term neglect of this critical issue.

Does what we have established mean that we have no hope, that we are simply destined to be nothing more than victims of an environment in which we have little or no influence?

I refuse to accept that as a foregone conclusion, and will go a step further and say that as challenging as creating a viable, sustainable, workable, development program across the Caribbean will be, we now have this fact as encouragement: That never in the history of the game has cricket offered such huge and unprecedented returns to any individual or collective entity offering “added value”. And those returns, ladies and gentlemen, will continue to grow.

Now how does all this apply to us here in the West Indies looking to move forward? Well...

 

I SUBMIT AS FACT: A strategic plan for development, encompassing all levels in our regional cricketing pyramid is non-negotiable if our product (TEAM) is to get to a point of ‘added value’ once again. No more proof is necessary, given what we as coaches now know, that competent players can be produced in planned and controlled environments. And with the loss of most, if not all, of the past informal systems of development here in the Caribbean and overseas, there is simply no other way forward.

FACT: The specific skills/expertise required to construct a strategic plan for cricket development are available. The great advantage our cricket planners now have at their disposal is that this expertise can be sourced from anywhere, either inside or outside the Caribbean for there is now a global market that can now be sourced for almost any skill within the game. And our cricket leaders know this having already gone to the international market twice in the last few years in search of a senior team coach.

FACT: We have more than enough resources here inside the Caribbean to fund the planning, implementation and the ultimate control of our own development processes. The massive sums pumped into Trinidad’s march to the football world cup in 2006 and the similar response to Jamaica’s effort ten years previously have convinced me, if no one else, that sufficient resources exist here at home. The ultimate challenge to cricket in the West Indies is to find out what is required to attract those resources to an involvement within our game and specifically its development. 

What is preventing people like you from investing in the future of our cricket? That is critical question that our Board must get answered and must use that answer in creating a model for development that can eventually stand on the back of our own efforts here in the Caribbean. Your community (the corporate community) functions on the back of putting resources in areas of “added value”, looking for “maximum return”, which in a nutshell is exactly the requirement of the global cricket market. It too is looking to all its constituents, in some shape or form, to bring added value to ensure some form of return.

I would therefore urge our administration to accept that as the challenge to meet going forward. Can ‘they’ the West Indies board, design a process that can be presented to the likes of ‘you’ within the Caribbean Business Community, that can meet the criteria above (added value, sufficient return), while fulfilling the structural requirements of any good development program.
 

My premise is simply this. Our Caribbean business community in my mind constitutes nothing less than a microcosm of the global business community with standards and capabilities that are just as high if not higher. You are also a community enjoying significant success on the back of these high standards, and just as important you have a passion for the game. Therefore if our cricket administration can convince you to invest in a process (literally and figuratively) that is sustainable, promises continuity, exhibits accountability, shows an outstanding chance of developing a high quality product, AND, can provide your community, as investors, with “added value”, we might finally, after 80 years of international membership, get to a position of truly being able to determine our own future in the global game. 

West Indies cricket has shied away from this responsibility for too long now and an unforgiving global market is clearly now signaling that it will no longer carry any passengers who cannot pay their own way, or worse, any passengers who will be an expense or financial liability to the efforts of other players in the market. 

In parallel to these observations, looking at the evolution of other globally televised sport, my educated guess is that the revenues generated by cricket will continue to grow at such a rate, that third parties who may have no loyalties to West Indies Cricket could eventually find it viable to take on the responsibility of development in our islands, with a view to in some way owning the players’ individual or collective commercial rights should the said players become good enough to play in an environment that would make that arrangement profitable and give them a return on their investment. In fact given recent developments in the Caribbean over the past couple of years, we may well be on our way to that scenario already. 


The guardians of our game have 80 years to reflect on. 80 years in which generation after generation of our cricket leaders have blindly bought into the premise that without planning, development and accountability, the status quo would remain the same. It has not and it will not!! AND SO...

I end tonight by reaffirming my belief that there exists only one factor that will guarantee our full fledged participation in the world game in the years ahead and that is a ‘product’ of quality. A product birthed from a high quality development program. A program that doesn’t currently exist.

But I declare that workable solutions for this immediate challenge exist.

And so tonight I stand with you all here and the entire Caribbean in challenging the current generation entrusted with the well being of our regional sport to finally exhibit the collective will required to make this process, after 80 years, a reality.

Time is running out ladies and gentlemen.

 

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