T&T's cricket team, its management and T&T Cricket Board (TTCB) made so many mistakes in its semifinal debacle against Jamaica last week that it was, and still is, embarrassing.The entire affair was a complete shambles. That is our game in these parts. These things only happen here!I will now digress somewhat so please hang with me. I think that you need this.'P-R-M-C-U-O-N-A-F-C-A-S-A-A'. Most of you do not know what that is. Air Traffic Control Officers (ATCO) do. Simply, it was a memory guide, an acronym, to remember names and a sequence. I still remember it. It was used in 1973 in our training, to remember the names of 14, yes, 14 annexes (books), which were used to educate us, as apprentice ATCOs. Some annexes were as thick as bibles.
As an ATCO (1973 and 1981), I especially remember No 2 – 'R' – 'Rules of the Air', and No 14 – 'A' – 'Aerodromes'. They were probably the most important and most difficult to learn.Believe it or not, with airport security and everything else expanding since, ATCOs now have 18 such annexes to memorise; word for word, procedure for procedure. I am reliably and creditably informed by T&T's Air Traffic Control Services that a 19th is on its way.ATCOs are 'over-paid' traffic policemen. Airline pilots are 'over-paid' bus drivers. Having done both, I am sure that the former ATCO is a much more difficult job than being a pilot. That is why it is one of the most stressful jobs ever. ATCOs are responsible for all aircraft, on or off the ground, and the people in them. Pilots are only responsible for their own single aircraft, and its load. Pilots are better paid.
Some suggest that that is because they are smarter. That depends, I have never heard of an airline pilot leaving his job to be an ATCO. Many pilots that I know were, like me, ATCOs. Pilots' examinations, theory and practical, are 'suck-eye' to ATCO's. Pilots that I know (Oh, I passed all first time) took their pilots' exams six times before success. They could never, ever, have been ATCOs.Having hung on with me for that salute to aviation in general, there is also a point to that overview.If you are a controller or an airline pilot, there is one thing in common. You must not only read very well but must be able to correctly interpret what you have read with appropriate actions to follow.If any of that sequence is missed, there is every possibility that lives will be, not only could be, lost. Checklists for pilots and ATCOs do exactly the same thing as checklists for cricketers and managers. They make sure that rules of operation, the functions of the equipment and the actions to carry them all out, to bring all to a fruitful, safe, full and efficient conclusion, are known and fully understood.
There is no shortcut around those. You simply either know or you do not know.For TTCB, the debacle started before the match began. Arrogance brought it to its eventual conclusion.Why, as mentioned last week, did T&T choose to play at UWISPEC (St Augustine), a batting paradise, when they had three supposed spinners Amit Jaggernath, Sherwin Ganga and Imran Khan, who would have probably operated better at the more spinner-friendly Queen's Park Oval? Interesting question that!How could TTCB and its managers not know the rules? If they had a different interpretation to Jamaica's, that should have been a red flag to immediately query them, from source, prior to the match.January last, when the rules were issued and if they had actually been read properly, was the opportune if not proper time for that query, not during the match; certainly not after two days' play.
Why, having won the toss, did T&T ask Jamaica to bat first, knowing that UWISPEC's pitch would always, like any other pitch in the Caribbean, deteriorate as the match progressed, thus allowing T&T to have the worst part of the pitch's 'break-up'? That is another interesting question. When Jamaica realised that they may have had a different interpretation, they, James Adams, former West Indies captain, contacted Roland Holder, the competition's operating officer and Imran Khan, communications manager of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), for clarification. In our ATC training, many a time, we also had to query the wording of those annexes too. WICB personnel obviously concurred that in the event of a "No Result", Jamaica would go to the final. From what I gleaned, TTCB may have been informed on Sunday morning, rather late (Day Three of the match) after Jamaica were already 574-7, with Wavell Hinds 131 not out and Brendan Nash out for 207, by match referee Hayden Bruce, that in the event of a "No-Result", Jamaica would proceed to the final.
Indeed, that may have even come about after I personally asked both Gus Logie, Jamaica's coach and Wavell Hinds, if they had declared at the overnight score. Hinds told me: "Crofty, we will bat until I get 300!" Jamaica certainly knew then that they were in an impregnable position, and that T&T was dead.After the "No-Result", came the legal affairs; an injunction; T&T's effort to stop the final. What is wrong with this picture? Was that injunction because they cannot read or by plain stupidity and arrogance? Of course, Justice Vasheist Kokaram threw the injunction out; no case, I expect, except perhaps that the plaintiffs could not read and properly understand English. Such arrogance is massively corrosive, as we are finding out in the political arena. It is not always right either if any pilot or air traffic controller operated like that, they would all have already been 'croaked'.
Remember this? T&T, having lost 2010's Twenty20 Championship to Guyana, could not bring themselves to congratulate the victor, even though Guyana had beaten them in a semifinal match. Do you remember the statement: "T&T is the best Twenty20 team in the Caribbean"? Even if Guyana did not win any matches in Champions League, if that were so, then how did T&T lose to Guyana, thus losing their crown of 2009?By the way, does Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC), having led the seven-round league at completion, not have a good point of law too; that they have won the competition and should not have to play Jamaica in any final? The answer is a resounding "No!"
That is because the rules, the same ones that T&T either did not read properly or could not interpret correctly, stated that a final will be played between the top two teams.Galileo Galilei, (1564 – 1642) and Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955), are my two greatest scientists ever. 'G-G' was so sure that the earth was round, and that the sun did not rotate around the earth, that he endured serious incarceration and punishment for his beliefs, contradicting even the church's views. Galileo knew his rules, and lived with, for them, to the end. The proof is in the reading.