There is a lawyer's joke in which a lawyer is trying to question the competence of a doctor in determining if the victim was really dead. "So tell me, doctor, even if his brain was lying on the table, it's still possible that he was alive, not so?" The doctor replies: "I guess so. He could be out there somewhere, practising law." The doctor could easily have answered: "He could be out there somewhere, running West Indies cricket." In March this year, I questioned the wisdom of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) in scheduling a training camp at the same time as the table-topping clash between T&T and Jamaica. I made the point then that anyone who knows anything about cricket (which probably excludes the WICB) will tell you that there is no substitute for "time out in the middle." No amount of net sessions, training camps or psychological pep talks could ever replace playing in a competitive match.
I surmised then: "I thought that the WICB was sabotaging its own tournament but I'm beginning to wonder if this is not a deliberate attempt to frustrate the chances of the T&T team." Now we hear that the WICB has again refused to release T&T players for the current Asia versus the Caribbean series of matches. Worse, they have also refused to release Kjorn Ottley from the HPC (so-called High Performance Centre, not High-Paying Centre) for the once-in-a-lifetime chance to represent Trinidad and Tobago in the Champions League in South Africa next month. What has the young man done to deserve this? Please tell us, WICB, what is so special about these camps that you think players will gain more from them than playing in a highly-competitive tournament? And don't tell me about the fear of injury to the players. More players get injured in the practice nets, exercising or playing small-goal football than out in the middle playing cricket. Or is it that, once again, out of pettiness, you are doing your best to undermine our chances in these tournaments?
Noel Kalicharan
via e-mail