“You Mashing Up De Cricket”: Lennox Weston Blasts West Indies Cricket Cuts

No No West Indies Cricket Board, You Wrong! Dead Wrong! You Mashing up de Cricket.

By Lennox Weston

Listening to the press release and the CEO of West Indies Cricket, one is left to wonder if the CEO and the West Indies Cricket Board are now acting like Columbus, just discovering the state of West Indies Cricket finances and just discovering the challenges facing West Indies Cricket and strangely seemingly not aware or realizing that their job is to meet those challengers and produce a high performing West Indies Cricket Team.

Let us be clear, The West Indies Cricket Board and Member Associations have produced the most fantastic and all conquering Cricket and Sporting team in the history of all sports despite all the limitations and challenges. The West Indies have produced the most outstanding and world dominating players in the history of the Game. Put simply our infrastructure limitations, our poor finances, our small-size markets, our small population have never defined us or stopped us from producing world class players or a dominant Cricket Team. We have always found solutions to overcome our challenges. What is different now?

What is different now goes beyond the boundary. “What cricket do they know if they only know cricket”. The Caribbean region has experienced over 30 years of structural adjustment, where the IMF has dominated our thinking that cost-cutting, rightsizing and downsizing without improving the quality of life of all our people somehow amounts to a solution. So, once you cut the health programs, the education programs or ignore the needs of the poor and downtrodden, sell off government assets in a fire sale, increase taxes and user fees, give foreign capital dominance and control of the commanding heights of your economy and balance the financial books, you are deemed to have done a great job. Totally forgetting your job is improving the lives of the people, stopping intergenerational poverty and poor people dying from lack of proper health care, education, infrastructure, crime and creating economic opportunities for self improvement and improvement of the quality of life especially for the poor and downtrodden.

We have a generation of regional leaders and professionals who have inculcated that IMF mind set, where certification without competence, elitism, and egotism have characterized individuals in leadership positions who have only mastered the art of fancy talk, jargon spouting, obfuscation and diversion to mask muddled thinking, gross incompetence and an inability to get the job done.

Any Fool can simply go and cut costs, balance the books while destroying the cricket. It does not require any talent, any intellectual capacity to simply go in and cut and cut and cut until there are no cricket competitions or cricketers. Then have the temerity, the gall to announce the West Indies Board is right sizing its operations for future success, when it is clear for everyone to see the only right sizing is for a coffin and a grave to bury West Indian Cricket.

Those who do not study and understand history cannot solve current or future challenges by designing creative solutions and simply despite any challenges get the job done. Every generation has had to meet its own challenges and simply get the job done with no excuses.

The West Indies financing has always been cyclical over a multi-year period. The solution has always been tight responsible budgeting and cost control, a good track record with financing institutions, and using short term loans to smooth out the low cycles and retiring the loans during the high earning period.

This is basic financial management. What has happened so that for the first time in the history of West Indies Cricket this is no longer viable and so all cricketing competitions must be terminated, adjusted into nonsense structures and players income slashed. How can no meaningful regional cricket competitions and no professional contracted players lead to improvement in West Indies cricket?

Also, can the West Indies Cricket Board please explain how a bankrupt Board can afford to repay the ICC Loan and service the loan for heavy capital infrastructure out of future income but cannot afford to finance current cricket competitions and pay their cricketers. What is the ICC loan been used for if not to finance cricket competitions and paying the cricketers, the very raison d’etre for the existence of the WICB in the first place, The Board needs to provide details of these loans, their detailed use of funds, and source of income to repay these loans.

The West Indies Cricket Board needs to first, acknowledge that all of its challenges, whether financial, infrastructure, retaining players, financing competition, developing talent overcoming small markets, limited sponsorship and Leverage to force a more equitable distribution of the income generated in Bilateral away series, in World cricket and by the ICC, attracting increased Viewership and attendance of games, all these challenges are really simply manifestations of a single problem. The lack of excellence and winning on the field of play. The lack of stars, of world class players generating consistent excellence and bringing joy and pride to a region and exciting an international audience.

The West Indies did it before, now what is required for this to happen again and how can this be done despite any limitations we face.

The requirements for producing internationally competitive cricketers and a successful team are well known. All the cricketing nations ranked from one to five in ICC ranking must be utilizing strategies that are working.

The West Indies Cricket Board and their member territories that produce the unmatched teams of the 70s 80s and early nineties must have done something that worked. The approach that we have used in the past 20 years that failed to produce winning teams must also have powerful lessons of strategies that do not work. It is the job of the West Indies Cricket Board and CEO to utilize these clear templates and develop the ecosystem and strategies suitable for the region and mobilize the financing for its implementation. That is their job. What we do know cutting regional cricket tournaments and players salary like a brainless IMF hatchet man cannot be the solution.

Also, Olympic committees and national sport associations have handled Olympic games Commonwealth Games and Pan American Games for decades, they do not need West Indies Cricket Board to handle these games. Save us the distraction, and focus on your job, the ICC competitions and restoring West Indies cricket to its glorious past of excellence.

To give some concrete examples of what the issues are and solutions I provide these additional insights. Despite all the limitations facing West Indies Cricket it is a fact at all the Under 19 World Cup competition from as far back as Brian Lara and Chris Gail right up to the most recent under 19 World Cup Competition, the West indies have produced young talent equal and in many instances superior to the talent of the top five cricketing nations despite their financial, infrastructure and technological advantages. We all can name these West Indian players that performed equally well or superior to other players from top five ranked ICC teams and who gave the region great hope at the under 19 level. Names such as Brian Lara, Chris Gail, Carl Hooper, Marlon Samuels, Ramanaresh Sarwan, Ryan Hinds, Jermaine Lawson, Sewnarine Chattergoon, Narsingh Deonarine, Alzzarri Joseph, Keemo Paul, Shimron Hetmyer, Tevin Imlach, Odean Smith, Obed McCoy, Alick Athanaze, Jaden Seales, Nyeem Young, Matthew Forde, and Jewel Andrew.

The West Indies ecosystem, despite its deficiencies, produced these players and more at the under nineteen level. How many of these players attain their full potential and had a long successful career with the West Indian senior team? What is responsible for their comparative lack of senior team development in many cases compared to past great West indies players and their peers from top ranked teams?

What made the West Indian players of the great golden age team mature, develop their game, become professional and consistent, averaging 40 and above. One statistic that is glaring and starkly stand out, is the number of first-class red ball games played at home and abroad in various leagues under different conditions by past West Indian greats which gave them the match practice and experience to master their batting craft and levels of concentration. This is also so when you compare the progress made by under 19 stars from the top ranked teams. Their cricketers play many more first class and red ball cricket compared to our cricketers at the same age of their development. Some might argue about facilities but that can be easily overcome by sending these players to training facilities overseas to make up for deficient ones at home.

Let me provide a second concrete example that we all know so well which involves the deleterious effect of cantankerous and debilitating warfare waged in West Indian cricket by administrators and WIPA and the selection parochialism and insularity in West Indian selection policy, as well as the harmful impact of T20 cricket that deprived the best West Indian talent from

playing test cricket for the West Indies.

These are the ages of players who retired from test cricket far too early, leaving a gap in the production line necessary to maintaining high standards in West Indian cricket.

Andy Roberts Retired at age 32, Richie Richardson retired from test cricket at age 34, Ramneresh Sarwan retired from test at age 31, Winston Benjamin retired at age 34, Kenneth Benjamin retired at age 31, Darren Sammy retired at age 30, Joel Garner at age 34, Jerome Taylor age, 32 and Darren Bravo retired at age 34, Nicholus Pooran age 29. Of course there are other names that can be mentioned but at least eight of these players could have stayed on longer to help maintain the west indies winning ways.

These are the names of our best talents that T20 cricket prevented from representing the West Indies or cut short their careers in test cricket. Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Bravo Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Sherfane Rutherford Shimron Hetmyer and Evin lewis. Another seven players that could have helped West Indies recapture their winning ways.

When you add the loss of West Indian developed youth talent Jacob Bethel, Jofra Archer and Phil Salt who all would have more than likely chosen to play for the West Indies team if it had the quality and dominance of all conquering West Indian team of the 80s.

It is clear that despite the limitations of infrastructure and financing that the West Indies ecosystem has produced and continues to produce world class cricketers right up to the under 19 level and it is the mismanagement of the development of these players to achieve senior team excellence mainly through lack of exposure to enough first class and red ball matches and expert coaching that the West Indies team has not been able to perform at its competitive best.

Rather than wasting money hiring international consultants scapegoating roles and number of employees at West Indies Head Quarters the money should be spent on arranging contracts in leagues overseas for top west Indian under 19 aged and under 23 aged players and increasing the number of first-class games they play at home since this is the defining difference between top international cricketers, past West Indian great players and our current players. Our under 19 and under 25 aged players simply do not play sufficient red ball first class cricket across various conditions to develop their batting craft and their level of concentration.

Harry Brook, at 27 years old has played 105 first-class matches up to this point in his career, with an test average of 53.09. Yashasvi Jaiswal, at 24 years old has a test average of 49 he has played 53 first class games, Jacob Bethel has played 31 first class matches age 23 with a test batting average of 32.

To maintain their skills and run scoring ability Gordon Greenidge, Sir Viv Richards and Brian Lara played a combined 1292 first class matches with both Sir Viv and Gordon playing over 500 first class games. This is what it takes to produce high-quality test batsmen who average over forty and fifty in test cricket. Not only Talent but hard work enduring the grind.

If the management team cannot even assess adequate manning levels and performance of staff members, why are we paying them. There are only seven members of the top executive management team, the other fifty workers at the headquarters are department staff support workers. What is the expected cost of this consultancy and what is the expected cost reduction expected on top of the 25% cut already decided for players and by extension admin workers. This consultancy is totally a waste of Money, I end by pointing out that in the history of West Indian Cricket, only sixteen Batsmen averaged forty and above in test cricket. George Headley 60.83, Everton Weeks 58.61, Garfield Sobers, 57.78. Clyde Walcott 56.68 Brian Lara 53.17. Shivnarine Chanderpaul 51.37. Viv Richards 50.23. Rohan Kanhai 47.53, Clive Lloyd 46.67. Andy Ray, 46.18. Conrad Hunt 45.06. Gordon, Greenidge 44.72. Alvin Kallicharan 44.43. Richie Richardson 44.39. Lawrence Rowe 43.55 Basil Butcher 43.11 Desmond Haynes 42.29 Jeffrey Stollmeyer 42.33. Roy Fredericks 42.49. Seymour Nurse 47.6 and Jimmy Adams 41.26.

Chanderpaul was the last West Indian batsman to average over 40 in test matches and he retired in 2015. No other West Indian Test batsman has averaged over 40 Since. It is obvious that the West Indies poor performance in tests matches has been the result of its failure to develop batsmen who average over 40 runs in Test matches.

The number of players who showed great potential at the Under nineteen level and those players with great talent who the West Indies Board could not attract to play Test cricket demonstrate that It is not so much lack of facilities or financing but rather the mismanagement by the West Indies Cricket Board of the special talented individuals at the under 19 level to make the transition to a successful senior career averaging in the forties in test cricket.

The present ecosystem despite any existing deficiencies. Produces internationally competitive cricketers up to the under nineteen level. Simple analysis of what it takes for current and past cricket players to average over 40 runs in test matches indicate clearly cricketers must play a much higher number of first-class cricket than what the West Indies cricketers are currently playing to allow them to develop their craft and the mental aptitude to perform in test matches at the 40 plus average level.

Consistent excellent cricket team performance requires at least three or four batsmen averaging in the 40s and above as members of that team. In the current English team. Joe Root at 50.45. Harry Brooke at 53.08. Docket and Pope Fluctuate in the 40s. In the Australian current tests Cricket team Steve Smith's averaging 56. Labuschagne Averaging 43.79 and Travis Head averaging 43.08. In the Indian test team Shubman Gill averaging 44 Jaiswal average 47.49 Virat Kohli average. 46.85. Rishabh Pant averaged 43.82 and before Rohit Sharma Ravindra Ashwin, Shedshawa Pujara have all averaged over 40 in tests.

To achieve excellence and return to winning ways a test team must have at least three or four batsman averaging 40 runs or more in tests.

The challenge of returning West Indian Cricket performance to excellence is straight forward. We must develop at least 3 to 5 batsmen who can average forty plus in test cricket. We have the pool of talented players at the under 19 level and a program of exposing these players to red ball first class cricket at home and abroad and top quality coaching are the critical ingredients for their full development

Any deficiency in facilities can in the short term until we build our own be overcome by sending young players to use facilities and special coaching abroad, As far back as 1972 the Antiguan Government sent Richards and Roberts to Al Gover Cricket school in London, they were 20 years and 21 years old then.

Once the West Indies start winning, the other challenges of finances, sponsorship, retaining players, paying players better will all disappear. If with revenue of up to US$80m the West Indies Cricket Board cannot run regional tournaments and get 5 batsmen exposed to the development program to transform them into a 40 plus average test players, then it is time for them to demit office and let some other team capable of getting the job done take over.