West Indies cricket on the field and at the administrative level regarding the joint hosting of the ICC T20 World Cup will be on display to the world in a few days. Understandably, the most important and self-fulfilling objective of this tournament is the quest to re-establish our team as amongst the best in the world, having previously won two titles, and as a region with a record second to none on the playing field in all of the formats of the game.
How we plan for and administer the game off the field will be a major focus. The latter aspect is surely going to be a source for investigating and reporting, especially by the foreign media who will be here to cover the games in the region and as they are played on American soil. When our team and members play beneath their demonstrated capacity, we as West Indians bow our heads and remember yesteryear cricketers and teams in all of the formats of the game. More so that we have grown accustomed to the poor quality performances of our teams of recent vintage. However, if our administration falls down on its hosting responsibilities, that is altogether a different matter.
Why so? Because such will be a criticism of our civilisation. If we are found guilty of administering the tournament in a manner, not necessarily free from criticism, as such a phenomenon is part and parcel of hosting such major sporting events for any country, but in a way that disrupts games, makes it impossible for high-quality cricket to be played and destroys the chances of teams playing for their countries to do so on an equal basis, that is a very different matter. If we can be faulted on significant aspects of administering the tournament, then we should be rightly called out for our shortcomings.
Cricket West Indies president Dr Kishore Shallow and his team of organisers responsible for the planning and administration work, must ensure every dressing room, pitch and fence around every ground where the cricket is to be played are all in the required order demanded by the International Cricket Council. They have a few days left to check and double-check and check again; they should leave no distraction from what is happening on the pitch of play.
They must also be fully conscious that there will be those in the international media who will be looking for every instance which can be blamed on Cricket West Indies; maybe the same goes for every hosting nation. We, however, must be conscious of reputational damage done not merely to the administrators but every West Indian anywhere and so to the capacity of the region to host an international event as large as the T20 World Cup.
To all of us as citizens of the West Indies, we must appreciate and carry out our responsibilities as the host nation and its people and we do so not only in the interest of being efficient and creative organisers of a game in which we have featured prominently for nearly 100 years, but also to avoid the wagging tongues of those who do not have our best interest at heart. Let the games begin! And best of luck to skipper Rovman Powell and his team.