THE changing face of business is providing discomfitures of similar proportions to the annual threat of hurricanes in the Caribbean. We well know the roller-coaster effect that these monsters visit upon the fragile economies of the region.
Today, it must be no different for the West Indies Cricket Board Inc., the governing body of regional cricket. This change in complexion must weigh heavily on the minds of the company’s board of directors in determining a strategic path.
If for no other reason, in keeping with the season, their songwriters and arrangers must produce lyrics and melody to capture and direct the minds of our cricketers, especially the youth, to fancy this great game as an attractive career choice.
Unlike Crop-Over, there is no chance of “back in time” being a substitute for injury to any aspect of the development of our cricket. Many believe that complacency over the last decade has caused us to taste the bitterness of the saline solution at the bottom of the well of recognition.
The recent exit of Sir Vivian Richards from the selection panel seems as mysterious as the hand said to have fathered the ‘administrative error’ that gave rise to the no-confidence motion of yesterday.
Just as Sir Vivian Richards must have been aware of the offer to join BBC commentary staff for the West Indies UK tour prior to the date of his notifying WICB Inc., so too should the ‘administrative error’ have come to light, as the file made its way from the writers of the cabinet paper through the chief surveyor’s office for its plan with full descriptive recital, to its ultimate stop for the issuance of a certificate of good health.
Last Friday the region learnt of the existence of a Pro Cricket League in the United States due to commence operations in early July. Fashioned like basketball, the league will have an Eastern Conference and a Western Conference, with each team playing six matches.
The two top teams from each conference will meet in a play-off and the winners will go on to a championship match in early September. Among the names linked to this initiative are Messrs. Ambrose, Richardson, Ganga, Dillon, Hinds and Ramnarine, the leader of WIPA
WICB, responsible for the development of cricket in the Americas, cannot overlook the speed with which USA developed soccer and hosted the last World Cup.
All these developments are being seen, we hope by WICB Inc., as events casting their shadows and that they are battening down the hatches to cope with bad weather not unusual at this time of year.
As globalisation descends upon the region, it underlines the need for WICB to conclude the matter of retainer contracts speedily, to reform and restructure its board so that the day-to-day management rests squarely in the hands of fulltime executives, no longer burdened by directors who overlook that their role is restricted to policy.
Cricket is big business.
(Reprinted from the June 30, 2004 issue of the Barbados ‘Nation’)