Is this the death of WI cricket?

I don’t think the president of Cricket West Indies (CWI) quite understands what motivates cricketers or what it is like to represent your country in cricket.  I say this because of his utterances, plus the decisions he makes and the reasons he gives for same.

Cameron has surrounded himself with foreigners, none of whom has any idea of West Indies cricket—how it came about through these disparate islands, the culture of the people, the political history and its relationship with the outside world, the feelings that drive the mentality be it Carnival or otherwise etc. etc.

The following positions are filled by foreigners who are observing and educating us in the game of cricket: the Chief Executive Officer, the Commercial Manager, the Head Coach of our Cricket Academy plus two assistants, the Head Coach of the West Indies (Windies) team, his assistant and the newly hired bowling coach, and the latest addition, a High Performance Director!

This proves to me that no one on the Board, Cameron most of all, has a clue as to what is required to build, develop and motivate a West Indian national team. All these individuals are a humbug to the progress of the West Indian cricketer within his own culture and philosophy; the values of his art and literature, people who are different and gave the music of reggae, calypso, soca and the steelband to the world; Nobel Prize winners like VS Naipaul, Derek Walcott and Sir Arthur Lewis plus so many writers and artists I haven’t the space to name them. This is the background and foundation of the Caribbean man.

Whatever we had to learn from our former colonisers we have learnt, whether we took advantage or not, but now we’re on our own and our cricket which helped to free us must not now be recolonised!

Our cricketers have always had their own style just like the Australian, Englishman, and Indian. The West Indians are the most popular cricketers, bar none, in every cricket-playing country in the world through the years, because of their exuberant personalities and their fascinating style.

When they opened up County cricket in England to overseas players in 1968, West Indies had the most players contracted which totalled 13 out of the 17 counties at the time. In the present era although West Indies’ team ratings are the lowest they’ve ever been, cricketers like Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell, Dwayne and Darren Bravo, Sunil Narine, Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy and a host of others are in demand in all cricket nations.

However the CWI Board does not even notice or recognise the fact that all our top-class cricketers were developed before the advent of Cameron. And because Cameron does not know the first thing about cricket or cricketers, he believes the answer lies in bringing these foreigners to our shores, for they obviously can’t get jobs elsewhere. If there were one or two vacancies that West Indians could not fill I could understand, but not nine positions. We could not be that poor in personnel or organisers!

Cameron praises Richard Pybus who did nothing for Caribbean cricket except to drag it down. He has been rejected worldwide but Cameron says he’s highly qualified. He might have the certificates and the experience by coaching in the provinces of South Africa and a brief stay in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh but no one kept him for a lengthy stay. Why? Because he was not successful, especially at international level!

Cameron says he was responsible for our victories in the three World Cup tournaments of 2016. The men’s team won because of the captaincy of Darren Sammy and the presence of then coach Phil Simmons plus the availability of our top-class players. The women’s team won through their coaches like Barbadian Vasbert Drakes and others who were all local, and the under-19 team was well directed by their English coach Graeme West. Pybus was the Director of Cricket of CWI and took all the praise.

After he completed his stint of three years why then did he resign and leave the position if he was so successful? The problem with Pybus is that, during the year he was away from CWI, he was rejected as no one wants him realising he’s not up to the task.  Cameron takes him back by creating a new position called High Performance Director who is going to interfere with the selectors. The selectors were already scared to death of him but find their job earnings too lucrative to resign in protest!

Pybus was handpicked by the CWI president for the newly created post without either bringing it before the Board or advertising the post. We now have to resign ourselves to the fact that the president of CWI is an authoritarian who unfortunately does not have any knowledge of cricket or cricketers hence does not know how to move the game or its players forward.  It’s the death of West Indies cricket!