In re-reading the original piece for this column today, in which I lambasted the West Indies cricket team for the 3-0 thrashing at the hands of South Africa in the Test series and the batting debacle of 54 in the first One-Day, I was torpedoed by its crushing non-originality and dulling monotony. I was writing what all the other writers were gushing over. Everyone seems to be frenziedly feeding on the Windies diabolical performances. None more so than those writers who had to suffer the torment of watching the Windies of the late '70s and '80s bully teams around the world. So instead it makes better sense to just hop scotch around the world and look at some of the odd bits of recent times. Monotony and repetitiveness is not going to go down well with the editors after all I did promise them thought provoking originality.
Such is the nature of contemporary life, that when you are down you're likely to be clobbered than be assisted. These days everybody is making hay while his sun shines and the Windies is doomed in darkness. Everyone such as Neil Manthorp, who brought us that 'Brian Lara overruling Sir Viv Richards' clash over the final eleven story. Lara dismissed the whole episode saying that disrespecting Sir Viv would be 'unthinkable.' But both Colin Croft and Tony Cozier gave more than generous hints that all is not as honky dory as Lara would want us to believe.
Manthorp, the South African writer, dug deep into his literary reserve to capture the state of West Indies cricket. "Being a West Indian cricket supporter in 2004 must be like meeting your ageing Aunt for lunch in an exclusive restaurant, only for her to turn up wearing a skin-tight, leopard-print mini- skirt and a see through blouse. It's true that Aunt Sally used to be a model, but that was 20 years ago and, to be frank, the cleavage she was once so proud of is now wrinkled and the highlighted hair should have given way to something more natural years ago," Manthorp wrote.
"West Indian cricketers remain hopelessly image conscious. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with tight t-shirts, diamond studded ear-rings and gold chains, of course, but they do look so much cooler on winning players. It can't be proven that image is more important than results to any of the current players, but it certainly looks to occupy more of their time than seems appropriate for a team being heavily and consistently beaten." You can hardly get more brutal than that, but its honesty must not be missed. Among the guys, 'profiling' and not 'professionalism' seems to be ranking high on their list of priorities. Over in Australia, John Wright, the Indian coach wants us to believe that Rahul Dravid's ball tampering episode was just an innocent mistake and only a slight mix up in his own priorities.
Not so said the match referee, Clive Lloyd. 50% of the match fee was the fine. Dravid, in my books seemed to have been one of the cleanest players in international cricket. His nice guy attitude and stately demeanor certainly deceived and one now has to reconsider that if he can sink to the level of rubbing a cough mint on the ball to get an advantage then anyone can do just about anything to swing the tides in their favour.
Excellent camera work, those cameramen should get the 50% match fee that Dravid was fined. The International Cricket Council certainly has the Indians digging deep into their pockets in the series with Australia and Zimbabwe down under. The captain Sourav Ganguly had to fork out 80% of his pay for one game for a slow over rate. The ICC penalized him 30% (10% for each of the three overs).
Add to that a 50% fine for 'conduct contrary to the spirit of the game, on the basis of time wasting."All of the Indian players in that game against Australia, were fined 5% for each of the three overs that were behind time. If this continues the ICC can make a healthy donation to the West Indies, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, the lesser ranked teams to revitalize their development programmes.
The West Indies can certainly do with the help. They are looking to milk the Englishmen for all they are worth in another way. A levy in excess of US$250 has been instituted for the upcoming series in the Caribbean. This is creating quite a stink in England. There is a steady campaign by Cricinfo.com to pressure the WICB into relaxing the levy, a website called WIShame.org has been launched to buffer the cause and all manner of cries of discrimination are crossing the oceans. Cozier chided the WICB for this measure but I am not so certain that we should be broad-siding the WICB this time around.
As I had conveyed to some officers of the board I am firmly in favour of this decision.
My qualm (and yes I always have to have a qualm), is that in an effort to choke the kitty with earnings, the process was not well thought out. Instead of only pinpointing the Englishmen the WICB should add a few percentages of their own for all fans buying tickets from beyond the Caribbean shores.
But how then do you regulate the 'scalpers' from making a massive killing as they sell at hugely jacked up rates to tourists seeking tickets, cheaper than the levied price?
The marketing and logistics folks can certainly work out an satisfactory system. With the WICB at a major disadvantage to the other Test playing regulating boards around the world they certainly have to clean every corner in getting their coffers back to a state that it can properly sustain West Indies cricket. This may be deemed by some as discriminatory, I consider it an intuitive strategy to boost West Indies cricket financially. The problem is that it was not handled as well as it should have been.
Wasim Akram, the recently retired Pakistani fast bowling great is also taking some measures which is not going down too well with all. With cricketing relations set to resume between India and Pakistan, Akram, as a commentator in Australia has been seen tutoring some of the Indian faster bowlers.
The Pakistani coach, another great in Javed Miandad, has a double take on the issue.
He has no problem with Akram sharing tips with the Indians but feels he should never reveal Pakistan secrets on reverse-swing for fear of giving their mortal enemies any advantages. "Telling another team the trade secrets of our team, like how to play reverse-swing, I don't think he would do it, and I hope he is not doing it," Miandad crisply commented. Wasim had better take notice.
Leading ICC Elite Panel umpire, Jamaica's Steve Bucknor would be well advised to take notice of the Indian thrashing that has been coming his way.
Reputed as possibly the best umpire on the international circuit, life has never been the same for Bucknor since he gave Sachin Tendulkar out for a duck by LBW in the Test series after 'Hawkeye' suggested that the ball was heading over the stumps. 'Hawkeye' too is creating a major stir but Australian legend paceman Dennis Lillie is not too impressed. "'Hawkeye' is purely a guide for armchair buffs, yet it seems a hell of a lot of experienced commentators take it as the be-all and end-all. Blokes with that experience - and most of them are former Test captains - know full well that every ball does not continue through at the predicted height," Lillie wrote. That does not matter much to the cricket-insane Indians. How dare Bucknor be so inept as to give their national icon out for a duck, especially in the middle of a spell when he has been struggling with his decisions.
Surely Bucknor had to have been out of his mind. Perhaps just as the Indian players were when asked by the Australian authorities to name their favourite songs to play as they walked out to bat. Not a single one of them gave an Indian hit. No sir, it was more along the lines of Jennifer Lopez, Rod Stewart and Bon Jovi though Ten-dulkar and Anil Kumble refused to oblige.
How strange life is. As Indians in Guyana fall over themselves to love Indian music, the Indian cricketers make a firm statement that the Western way is the way to go. Perhaps the Western embrace of technology is the next step for cricket. Anything to get my mind off of those darn Windies!