Let's get serious about cricket

By Orville Higgins

Here is my open letter to the hierarchy of West Indies cricket. Like most Caribbean nationals I am fed up with what passes for West Indies cricket these days, I know we are in desperate times and need to resort to desperate measures. Here we go.

Dear Sirs, Albert Einstein told us many years ago that the definition for insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This might mean that most of you running West Indies cricket are probably all a little crazy because not much has changed in the things we do for the last decade and a half, yet we hope to be world-beaters.

Here are some suggestions which may help:

1. Get rid of selectors for the West Indies team. Cricket is probably the only team sport in the world where the coach doesn't have the wherewithal to pick who he wants. Why do we need selectors? Even if other cricket nations stick stubbornly to the business of selectors, we should be bold and get rid of them and fall in line with other team sports. Maybe advisers, but the coach should have the final say in who plays and who doesn't, so when he loses he can't say he didn't get the players he wanted, and he can pick players who fit his philosophy and style.

2. Anybody who watches cricket in the West Indies will realise that one of our biggest problems is that we don't take enough singles. This is a problem at all levels, from 'curry goat' cricket to Test cricket.

We don't rotate the strike enough; we either block or go for big shots most of the time and this leads to a litany of problems. Good bowlers can then set us up, and we are more susceptible to that wicket-taking delivery. Most cricket matches are won by the team scoring the most singles, and we need to radically find a way to teach this skill to our young players well before they become even club cricketers.

track and field

My suggestion is a 20-20 competition at primary school of singles only, or at least a 'no boundary' competition. You get only what you run for, the ball that goes in the boundary is still one. If we do that, I guarantee that the next generation of West Indies batsmen will be far better than the ones we have now.

3. Part of the reason track and field is doing so well in Jamaica, and other areas of the Caribbean, is because youngsters know that if they do well at Champs, they will almost automatically get a scholarship to an overseas college. They can use this to better themselves even if they don't become professional athletes. So track and field is a way out of poverty and a stepping stone to life. The same is true to a lesser extent in football and other sports.

That doesn't happen for our young cricketers, which is part of the reason our athletic youngsters are more inclined to take up track and field and football and others sports, as opposed to cricket.

Cricket only benefits the people who represent the West Indies, although in recent times the remuneration package for first-class cricketers has improved. We need to give youngsters an incentive to play cricket in high school, and they must know that there are tangible benefits to be had once they are really good, even if they don't become international cricketers. My suggestion is that, once you represent your country at the youth level in cricket, you should be given a full scholarship to one of our tertiary institutions.

4. Find a way to make cricket gear cheaper. You would be surprised how many youngsters gravitate to football and basketball and track for no other reason than it's relatively cheap to play these sports. If we continue to sell cricket gear for 'cow money' then we are turning off a huge generation of players who will just play the sport that they can afford. How about completely removing duty from cricket gear in the region? Governments of the region say they love cricket. This is one way to prove that they are not just talking.

Orville Higgins is a sports journalist and radio talk-show host. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com