The International Cricket Council (ICC) recently in their meeting in Dubai came strongly criticising the actions of the West Indies players in aborting the India tour. It stated that all member boards were in solidarity with the WICB and considered the players' actions to be as they put it "extremely disruptive, damaging and unacceptable." From all reports, Dave Cameron, the President of WICB, went into that meeting uncertain but came out a winner. He says "the meeting went fairly well. All the boards are unhappy with the players' actions."
With the Boards now describing the players' actions as unacceptable, will the WICB now try to take action against the India 14? We doubt they can, seeing that the WICB at the recent meeting held at the Hyatt Hotel in Port-of-Spain, agreed among other things, not to victimise or discriminate in their selection policy against the India 14. Dwayne Bravo is already in South Africa talking about this non-victimisation policy of selection and boasting about a strong WI team to face the South Africans.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves is singing a different tune from the WICB. He said that he is apportioning blame to no one party. He further stated that the WICB has agreed not to discriminate against these players; that he will be approaching Caricom to assist in getting the WICB out of this debacle in which it has found itself; that the WICB owns no grounds and that most of all, it is time for the implementation of the Patterson Report which involves the restructuring of WI cricket at the level of governance.
Caricom is now holding the pull strings of the WICB and if they want to play ball, the Patterson's Report must be implemented now. It is that simple. No West Indian taxpaying fan should be willing to put his/her hard earned tax dollars to bail out the WICB unless and until the Board agrees to the restructuring.With all these narratives and counter-narratives swirling in the head of the head of the WICB where he cannot punish this "disruptive and damaging" act by these players and where he feels that his hands are tied, there is only one decent thing for the President to do.
Meanwhile back home in Trinidad, the telegraph punches of the TTCB, in condemning the India 14 and recently demoting Denesh Ramdin to player status, will certainly be the laugh of the day on Friday at the Queen's Park Oval, when the new skipper, Rayad Emrit, consults the wicket keeper on every bowling change and strategic field-placing. That, my friends and I are willing to pay good money to see.
The Brian Lara captaincy and the Darren Ganga episode when the WI captain, Brian Lara was willing to play for T&T under Captain Ganga was a different kettle of fish. Lara was asked and he graciously acceded. We are afraid that same courtesy was never extended to the present WI captain, Dinesh Ramdin. Ah boy! The games that those big boys play other than cricket!
LAWRENCE PERCIVAL
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