The dramatic and depressing fall of West Indies cricket has been well-documented. A cricketing nation which has produced all-time greats over the last 80 years, from George Headley to Brian Lara, barely seems even to care about the sport these days.
The recent first Test of the Frank Worrell Trophy series between the home side Australia and the Windies acted as an example of just how far West Indies cricket has fallen since the first dispute between the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) broke out in 2005. Australia won by an innings and 212 runs, and from day one it was clear that the tourists were just going through the motions. None of the players had any interest in the game and the five days went by agonisingly slowly as the inevitable result petered out.
There are two minor positives that can be mustered at the moment: The team are young and Chris Gayle is hoping to return to Test cricket soon, returning from a back injury. However, the youngsters seemed so uninterested in Hobart that that first point may be irrelevant, and the only difference that Gayle can hope to make will be to attendances and not Test results.
The players and the board have almost constantly been at war with the each other throughout the last ten years. The main trouble seems to be over the pay structure, which has led to individuals and on occasion entire squads boycotting important matches and series — most notably the 2014 tour of India, which seriously damaged relations between Indian and West Indies cricket.
Many factors have contributed to the Windies’ decline. The one which is brought up the most is the rise of Twenty20 cricket. In Garry Sobers’ brilliant lament about the state of the team for whom he once flourished, he mainly blamed the problems on the money in T20. Many players such as Sunil Narine and Chris Gayle have realised that they can earn much more by playing as mercenaries in the never-ending supply of Twenty20 leagues across the world; be it the IPL, the Big Bash, the new Pakistan Super League, the Natwest T20 Blast and all sorts of other similar competitions in all sorts of countries.
At this point I could go on a rant about how Twenty20 is ruining the “purity” of the game and how Test cricket is dying because of it — neither of which are necessarily true. However, in that interview, the transcript of which is well worth reading, Sobers made an excellent point: “When you look at the point of view of the players from the West Indies in particular, they come from very humble backgrounds. So if the opportunity is there for them to make money so they can help their families, then you can’t really blame them.”
He went on to say that Test cricket is the cricket that they should be wanting to play, and it is the responsibility of the WICB to make sure that they do, but any player, particularly one from a humble background, will want more money. Money is usually part of the answer when trying to solve problems. The WICB, the ICC and the West Indian nations as a whole need to be pumping more money into the longer forms of the game.
But mindlessly hurling money at Test cricket won’t help. The WICB need to work out how to market the sport much more effectively — that means spending money on advertising, grass roots cricket, putting the decline in TV and radio coverage to a halt and everything in between. It will most likely require a lot more financial help from the ICC, but how much will they want to invest in a nation whose viewing figures, attendances and general interest in the sport are dramatically falling? The board must make clear to the rest of the world that they want to sort things out.
This is where the other main problem lies: the board. They have shown no desire to change and in fact have actively ignored calls to do so. Michael Holding recently described them as “dysfunctional” and “untrustworthy” and has made it clear that things will not get better as long as the current board is in charge and the system stays the same. Radical change is needed.
It almost seems futile trying to come up with solutions and crying out for change — the board don’t want to do anything; T20 cricket continues to rise; far too much needs to change. Transforming an entire group of islands’ attitude to a sport is a nigh on impossible thing to do, and trying to get a group of countries, many of whom have other problems to deal with, to generate so much money on their own borders on the unfair.
According to team manager Richie Richardson, the new Carribean Premier League (a T20 competition) will be good for the growth of the sport in the region. Twenty20 has always been the saving grace for the Windies in the last decade; they were even world champions in the format in 2012. The new competition has been met with great interest by the public, which means that money can be made to revitalise all other aspects of the sport, and could be used to develop young players and possibly even to build bridges between the board and players.
It has been depressing to write this and the state of West Indies cricket is such that it is difficult to work out how to solve it. Perhaps it would be best to end on a positive note. They don’t look all too enthusiastic, but the current crop of young West Indian players look like they can become a force to be reckoned with if they are nurtured properly and taught to love playing for their country. As things stand, the situation isn’t going to change, so one can only hope that there will be a revolution that can lead this great group of islands to becoming a cricketing powerhouse once again.
