There has been a lingering illusion governing the actions and policies of Cricket West Indies (CWI) that the restoration of the team’s fortunes in Test Cricket is the route towards reputation enhancement.
The recent brace of Test results extending back three years at least and following heavy defeats by India and Bangladesh in late 2018 bespeak an embarrassing failure of the team, management and board. The silhouette of our guys in white flannels with ball and willow boldly imposing themselves is but a memory flicker in the play of Hetmeyer and the efforts of Roach and Gabriel. But therein lies the seeds of a solution.
The game is not what it was. Franchises abound where the Packer experiment 40 years go was a precursor to the creative destruction of the international game.
We have had over ten years of revolutionary changes in the game with its effects transmitting across each format of the game. Franchises offer lucrative packages to recruit the talented – no matter their own status as 2 innings cricketers. So long as they are adept to the demands of attack with bat or ball, some innovation in the execution of such skills and smart decision making then this is all that matters. Throughout this ten year period West Indian cricketers have been the ones predominantly defining the style and approach of T20 and now T10 cricket. They populate the statistical global benchmarks of these limited over contests. New audiences come to learn about the game through their and other international players’ exploits.
Yet, ironically a haughty anti-innovation elite continued to rule CWI and it’s regional network. A staid approach marked by attempts at stoic batting and battles for attrition seem to rule. Some of these sensibilities formed part of the hardwired logic of Courtney Browne as Chief Selector who was never shy about the kind of cricketer he prefers for the Test game. False choices and false dichotomies were in supply and established. Players cane to be labeled T20, 50 over and Test specialists. This marked a draining of the Test swamp in the manner of a typical 1980s English Test side. The world had come to know cricket the West Indies way like that of a coiled expression of counter-attack that can, as the situation demand, revert to a brooding patience only to later unfurl a honed assault either at the crease or in the field.
Too many of the cricket selectees bear no such instincts. Hetmeyer, Roach and Gabriel are isolated while their character-skilled types like Blackwood, Evin Lewis, Nicholas Pooran, Keiron Pollard (perhaps earlier in his career), Andre Russell (as a batter), Cornwall, Simmons, Oshane Thomas, Fletcher, Carter etc have been either ignored for Test selection/consideration or hamstrung by restrictive eligibility rules.
The banality of the present comes into view when we witness manoeuvres by England to reduce its 7 year national eligibility rules to 3 years in order to accommodate overseas players not born in England but plying their skills there. Meanwhile our CWI insists on ruling out West Indians who opt to play franchise cricket to secure their financial future when these coincide with CWI domestic tournaments. We have heard about a relaxation of such rules – not their removal – and in the circumstance, we can only deduce that such a “relaxation of the policy” is not legally binding on the selectors.
Of course this does not excuse the appalling non-inclusion of Darren Bravo, Sunil Narine, Andre Fletcher and Raheem Cornwall; or the persistence with Powell as an opener and Ambris as a middle order option.
Time to break with universals and return to the embrace of enterprise, aggressive and smart play.
Broker a new rapprochement with those players who are consistently making a global audience take note of their audacious play. Cameron and the CEO should take a leaf out of the New Zealand cricket authority. They do not insist on eligibility they work with the players to carve out availability schedules. It does not mean that one has to copy the example of their key players or captain arriving from franchises 1 or 2 days before the First Test of an overseas fixture but the spirit of compromise is what is recommended.
