Fire the Pimps on the WICB(C)

Submitted by Pachamama

We recall well, between sleep and wake, nightmares of the slaughter of our teams, by the great Australians of the 60’s and 70’s. But this New Zealand team of 2013 is the opposite of the Australians, and yet, the expectation of capitulation remains our constant companion, in this battlefield of dreams, especially at this time of the year.

Last test match the West Indies Cricket Team succumbed for the umpteenth time, over the last two decades, to a less than viable opposition. This cultural rot will only stop when we properly locate its causation firmly in the laps of the administration of the West Indies Cricket Board (of Control) (WICB) and take concerted actions to excise the underlying cancer of this prolonged and institutionalized failure.

Since the coup that ended the ‘Age of Dominance’ the cricket establishment in the Caribbean has not produced one single player worthy of that epoch. What we have had is the constant recycling of average pretenders totally removed from the mind set of Worrell, Lloyd and Richards. The warrior mentality has been stripped from them, by executive design. The coup plotters of 1991 and their descendants continue to destroy West Indies cricket at all levels. So the largesse of team management could be directed to a Richie Richardson, the instrument of the plot which relocated effective power from players to administration.

Andre E Baptise Exposes a Pea Sized View of the CPL

A pea sized view of the CPL!

The launch of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) after the first week has been deemed a success by the organizers and the public at large. There is no doubt, much to the chagrin of the cricket purists, that this is the form of the game which the public is prepared to support in great numbers. There can be no doubt that given the state of West Indies cricket it is the form of the game which our players seem to perform better than the other forms. Perhaps because it fits nicely with our natural attacking style.

To be expected the launch of the new CPL has had its little share of controversy.  First the Central Bank of Barbados felt constrained to issue a warning that Venus International should not use the term ‘merchant bank’. Probably motivated by the Allen Stanford mess which still lingers.  Venus International is the investment company which has been setup in Barbados under whose ambit the management of the CPL falls. And in recent days we have heard mutterings that the Trinidad franchise team which competes under the name Trinidad Red Steal should drop the name Trinidad and go by the name Red Steel only. The reason: Trinidad already owns a national team which has done well in Twenty20 cricket (Champions League) across the world, and is generally believed to have the best players.

To cap it off an Andre E Baptise has penned the most asinine article which appears in the Trinidad Guardian.  After reading the column one understands why our little islands will remain insular and which will make pursuing functional cooperation a challenge in a global economy which demands it. The concept of franchising appears to elude the man.

West Indies Cricket Dominance Threatened By The Inaction Of ICC

Chris Gayle (l) Sunil Narine (r)

Cricket loving fans in the Caribbean have been reacting to the news that a solution to the Gayle WIBC impasse is imminent. Reports in the regional media indicate that a high level mediation led by Prime Minister Ralph Gonzales [Chairman of the Caricom sub-committee on cricket] and President of the WIBC met with Gayle in St. Vincent last week. The fact that Gayle will need time to mull over a proposed deal continues to illustrate to those of us not intoxicated by the emotion this issue has generated that the underlying problem for the WICB and the West Indies team remains.

The real problem for the WICB is to recognize that the foundation of the problem is money and greed. Defenders of Gayle’s position suggest that loyalty cannot be taken to the supermarket. It does not matter that Sir Viv Richards and other prominent cricketers of yesteryear spurn attractive money offers to play in South Africa as one example of principle trumping money considerations. To think they were paid far less than present day players by the WIBC! There was a time when individuals were prepared to stand on a principle, any money consideration although important was not the ‘over-weight’ consideration factored to arrive at a final decision.

The leadership (used loosely) in West Indies cricket needs to reconcile what are the overriding perquisites to building a cohesive team now and the future. One does not have to be Peter Drucker to appreciate that a team requires members to committed to team objectives, as important, is the need for team members to manifest behaviours which lend to the team achieving optimal cohesion. All other considerations must be weighed secondary if the West Indies team is to achieve success.

The Failure Of The WICB As A Modern Slave Plantation

Submitted by Pachamama

 

Embattled former West Indies captain, Chris Gayle

At a time when the peoples of North Africa and Southern Europe are seeking to shake off the hegemonic imperialistic structures of oligarchy, humiliation and despotism the black elites of the West Indies Cricket Board of control are presenting a brutal plantocratic image that equals or dwarfs the worst expressions of the slave system. As part of a wider neo-liberal initiative of illegitimate sporting bodies, it is destined to failure.

This brutal institution under the guise of having an interest in the development of West Indies cricket seeks to limit the internationally recognized civil and human rights of players and the union that represents them in the most perverse and Kafkaesque manner. It argues that it has a right to control the private behaviors of players. It believes it has a right to characterize the private thinking of players as ‘antagonistic’ and ‘unrepentant’. Its leading Zionist oligarchs assume the right to decide who the players’ union representatives should be ahead of negotiations. It acts in ways that limit the ‘freedom’ of cricketers to contract their labour under market conditions using petit nationalism as the last stronghold of their tyranny. The WICB believes it has a right to dispense privileges instead of a recognition of basic human rights.

West Indies Cricket Board Exposé Wikileaks Style

Click image to access website

The above website purports to have access to confidential West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) minutes. For example, it states in a March 29, 2011 post that West Indies cricket coach Otis Gibson is earning a USD261,000.00 package and CEO in another post is raking in a cool package of USD300,000.00.

Read the blog WICB Exposé and weep. Of course BU cannot vouch for the  veracity of the content.

Jackasses All Braying In Unison

The failure of the West Indies cricket team to make it through to the semi final stage of the ICC T20 tournament appears to have caught West Indian supporters by surprise. One would have thought a team with the track record of the West Indies cricket team in the last 12 years would  NOT have provoked such an uproar. Surprisingly even the unperturbed Captain of the West Indies Chris Gayle was driven to apologize to the West Indian people. Bear in mind, Mr. Duckworth Lewis was very generous to the West Indies in the preliminary game against England. Does anyone believe the West Indies would have scored 190+ to win that game?

As expected the region’s media has been having a field day carrying several opinions of regional cricket commentators echoing the plight of the West Indies team and offering the usual feeble suggestions to the way forward. In a nutshell, much of the outpouring of opinions and commentaries in the various media can only be described as high order flatulence aka bovine excrement.

BU was reminded to check the International Cricket Council (ICC) website to seek confirmation of the West Indies cricket team’s current world ranking. To no great surprise there was confirmation that of the 12 teams with ICC rankings, the West Indies occupies a distant number 8 position behind Pakistan with Bangladesh in tow.  To paint the picture, the four teams which trail the West Indies cricket team in the ICC Rankings are: Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland and Kenya. Again, did we reasonably expect West Indies to win the ICC T20 competition?

T20 – Refreshing, In More Ways Than One

Hartley Henry - DLP Political Strategist

They said “Bring it” and Caribbean people brought it! The T20 world cricket tournament is, I declare, a phenomenal success! Not since the days of Lloyd, Richards, Lillee, Chappel, Botham, Gavascar and Bishan Bedi have I been so glued to my television screen, watching the battle of bat versus ball.

I am not getting involved in the argument of the adverse impact of this version of the game on the traditional test and one day formats. I leave that to the experts. What I am saying is that T20 meets the needs of persons such as me who simply want to watch good, exciting cricket and who do not have a lot of time to hang around waiting for a result.

Frankly speaking, I am West Indian, but, it bothers me not who eventually wins the 2010 championship. From where I stand, this outcome does not define or determine any aspect of cricketing supremacy. This is simply a case of cricketers having fun and spectators sharing in the excitement. Added to this is the fact that sponsors are getting good value for money and administrators are making a profit. Simply put, T20 is win-win for all concerned.

Even the host countries are benefiting, unlike in a tournament of recent memory when all but a few political operatives lost their shirts. Just imagine that the region is spending a mere fraction of what was spent on Cricket World Cup and is reaping benefits that surpass and far outweigh those of CWC.

West Indies Cricket Mired In A Perpetual Crisis

Submitted by The Scout

Julian Hunte, West Indies Board Chairman

It is often said that society today reflects what has been taught to the young generation, hence they only reproduce what is happening in society in general. We see this in the callous attitude of workers today, we also see it in the selfish, “don’t careish” attitude of our drivers, in fact this is demonstrated in almost every area of society today. It is therefore no surprise that our only unifying company in the Caribbean, namely West Indies cricket, is now about to fall victim to the cancer of arrogance that has been engrained in this selfish Caribbean region.

There is this belief within the region that some groups of people have the right to invade other countries and demand even more rights than citizens of the very country, while at home they have little or no such privileges. Even though it is absolutely obvious that they are causing disruptions, they selfish attitude has prevented them from seeing rationally, even at the expense of causing a serious demise of the entire region.

The same thing has been plaguing West Indies cricket for some time and it, like the regional countries, has the potential to permanently damage the Caribbean reputation globally. Both the WICB and the WIPA are behaving like gods unto themselves, at the expense of the Caribbean cricket  fans. Both sides have got many skeletons in their closet, as we all know yet neither side seem willing to come off their “high horse” positions.