The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has consciously and continuously rejected the call for the restructuring of West Indies cricket, and at the level of governance, as the PJ Patterson report, which now lies somewhere in the dust halls of their boardroom, had suggested years ago.
We now have the PM of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves advocating for the assembling of a three-member panel to help resolve the ongoing contract dispute between the WI players, their union, WIPA and the WICB. Dr Gonsalves proposes, and the name comes up again, former Jamaican PM, PJ Patterson as a member of the panel.
We can safely bet our last penny that the WICB members will not venture into these waters, since they have already appointed a task force that they themselves have hand-picked to initiate exactly what Dr Gonsalves is advocating.This carefully-selected task force, we assure you, will apportion blame for this debacle to everyone, the players, WIPA and WICB. But our bet is that only the players will be penalised.
Witness the pronouncement of the T&T Cricket Board (TTCB) long before the task force even asked its first question! Their telegraphed punches have already begun knocking down players.Former WIPA Head, Mr Ramnarine has quite rightly deemed the TTCB position as premature.Restructuring of the governance of WI cricket would involve making the Board accountable to a higher authority; something unfortunately, the Board will not wish to entertain.
Power that is in the hands of descendants of a people who were once drawers of water and hewers of wood and cane, where the workers were always wrong and must be punished, is a whip that will continue to be held high, visible in the master's hand.The handover of power, therefore, he feels, makes him non-functional, lays him bare and reduces him to the ordinary.
So while they are holding their meeting with "relevant stakeholders" in the absence of the captain "protagonist" and which they described as "fruitful" and "cordial," their agents are busily calling players of the WI "A" team in Sri Lanka, enquiring of the players whether they would be willing participants for the up-coming tour of South Africa. Well, here is some news for the WICB.
While they threaten the BCCI, who threatened to court martial them financially, not to take them to court, the South Africans are wondering whether they should threaten the WICB if they decide on sending a second-string WI team on South African soil as they attempted to do in the Brian Lara era. A second-string WI team certainly should not be the beneficiary of the South African cricket fans' hard earned dollars.
At least not in this day and age where money for ordinary folks is not easy to come by. It is therefore your call, South Africa. The cricket ball is now in your hands.We here in the West Indies, in these tiny isles of tiny theatres and large egos, certainly do not have the fortitude to bring our Board to book.Maybe you or the BCCI can assist us in this regard. Thanks in advance.
Lawrence Percival
Couva