Let those in cricket deal with cricket

ON THE BOUNDARY with Tony Becca

The embattled Chris Gayle, not surprisingly, has called on the CARICOM governments to intervene in the impasse between himself and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), and also not surprisingly, by the time the words left his mouth, WIPA, the West Indies Players Association, backed his plea and CARICOM agreed to act.

Bharrat Jagdeo, the president of Guyana, said that CARICOM should "heed" the call from Gayle because the people own West Indies cricket, because the board members behave as if they are the private owners of West Indies cricket, because he thinks it is a vendetta against players like Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, and others, and because he thinks the board has decided to humble these guys.

The president also believes that the board is trying to break Shivnarine Chanderpaul, according to him, that cannot be right. He thinks it is time to change some of these people, most of these people - to set term limits for them, as the people of Guyana have set for him.

CARICOM, through its new chairman Dr Denzil Douglas, agreed to resurrect its prime ministerial subcommittee on West Indies cricket to deal with the matter.

Whatever West Indies cricket has been in recent times, it is better to leave it be, for the simple reason that politics and sports should not mix, especially West Indies politics and sports, what with the insularity and the many different islands all operating independently with their own government, their own money, etcetera, etcetera.

Politics and cricket in the West Indies could lead to politicians attempting to select the West Indies team, its captain, its manager, and its coach.

While there is no doubt that something is wrong with the majority of the members of the West Indies Board as far as their knowledge of the game, their ability to administer, and their insularity are concerned, there is also no doubt they have been elected fairly and by those involved in cricket.

Elections

And for those who do not know, according to their constitution, the members are elected every two years and the board consists of 12 members, who must be representatives of the territorial boards, plus a president and a vice-president who can come from anywhere in the region, from inside or outside of cricket.

It is as simple as that.

The only thing that is not simple, the only thing that makes the procedure difficult is that the election process starts from the club level where a committee to run the club is elected, from that, two members of the club are selected to attend an annual general meeting to elect the members of the national association, and the association then send two representatives to form the WICB.

The problem is that, especially in Jamaica, the clubs are dying, they do not have enough members, the lack of members leaves the clubs short of qualified members good enough to serve, and this situation impacts on the election of officers from the club level, to the national level, and then to the West Indies Board level.

It is as simple as that.

Does cricket belong to the people of the West Indies? Not at all, certainly not in recent times, not the past five or six years at least, not based on the people's support of the cricket, and not based on the governments' support for cricket.

If the people support the game, apart from their lack of their support for the clubs, where are they at matches, any kind of matches, be it school boy matches, club matches, first-class matches, or Test matches?

Where were they, except for the few hundreds who attended the games during the recent matches against Pakistan and the current matches against India?

And except for Jamaica and Barbados, where were the governments when the WICB asked them for money to help West Indies cricket, the one thing, according to the governments, which is so important to West Indian people?

Where were the governments in the 1970s when the board asked for money to counter the offer which Kerry Packer made to the cricketers, where were the governments in the 1980s when the board asked for money to counter the South African offer, and where were the governments in the 1990s when the English County cricket stopped hiring West Indian cricketers and the board asked for assistance to keep the cricketers at home?

On top of all that, even if cricket belongs to the people, whether the West Indies is winning or losing, something has changed, or is about to change, as far as the relationship between cricket and governments are concerned.

Just over a week ago, the ICC, at its executive meeting in Hong Kong, ruled that in two years, all countries must break the ties that bind them to governments, to politicians, except in the case of security.

And last week, Kumar Sangakkara, the former captain of Sri Lanka, hit out at how cricket is run in Sri Lanka.

Lack of accountability and transparency

Sangakkara talked about the lack of accountability and transparency in administration and the credibility of conduct in Sri Lankan cricket.

Cricket in Sri Lanka, as it is in Pakistan and Bangladesh, is run by the government, by politicians, and immediately after Sangakkara's comments, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, the minister of sport in Sri Lanka, said: "He has to get permission. He can't talk about the cricket administration or cricket. I have written to the chairman of the cricket board to go into this and get me a report immediately."

We don't want that in the West Indies. What we want is more people supporting the game so that we can have more choices in electing the people who run the game.

Governments, politicians, must look after things like education, health, housing, and security, and cricket must be run by those in cricket, as it is in football, in track and field, in tennis, in table tennis, in netball, in golf, etcetera, etcetera.