Tony BeccaIF YOU should ask any one who has anything to do with the development of cricket in the West Indies if the West Indies Cricket Board has any money, the answer, almost certainly, will be no and for one simple reason.
Whenever one talk about funding, about some assistance for cricket in the schools and for cricket in the clubs, the response from members of the board is always the same thing: where is the money to come from?
The impression is that despite sponsorship and television rights, the board is broke and therefore has no money to assist the development of the game in the schools or in the clubs, and that may well be so.
If that is so, however, it is strange that the board, players association or no players association, has not moved to pay the West Indies players according to performance.
AUSTRALIAN STAFF
It is also strange that it has so many people on its payroll, and even more so, it is strange not only that it can afford to pay a foreign coach, not only that it can afford to pay a foreign coach from a country like Australia, but that it can also pay an assistant coach/analyst also from Australia, a physiotherapist also from Australia, and a strength and conditioning co-ordinator also from Australia.
This is saying two things to me.
The first thing is that the West Indies, this West Indies that have produced so many outstanding professionals in so many fields including surgeons and scientists, cannot find not only a coach for a cricket team, but also an assistant coach/analyst for a cricket team, a physiotherapist for a cricket team, and a strength and conditioning co-ordinator for a cricket team.
Apart from the embarrassment of so many white foreigners in West Indies cricket and the reminder of the days which so many had thought were behind us, the second thing it is saying to me is that the West Indies, this West Indies that is short of so many basic facilities for its people, that cannot pay its teachers enough to keep them at home, is so rich that it can afford to pay a team of Australians to teach West Indians how to play cricket.
But that is not all. As if four foreigners are not enough, the West Indies Cricket Board has now turned to another to an Irishman residing in North America.
His name is David Scott, he has not yet been fully employed, he is a performance enhancement specialist, and according to manager Tony Howard a West Indian out of Barbados, he is here to look at the West Indies players and possibly to help the management team.
"His purpose is to work with the management of the team to see whether or not there are any other tools that he can give to us to help our work with the team," said Howard.
"The mental aspect is an area of the game that we think needs some work. We are the ones who spend the most time with the team. We also need to find out if there are any other tools that we can use that will help us to make our jobs easier and the team to get better."
Apart from the fact that there must be a West Indian good enough to do that, that in Dr. Rudi Webster and Joe Hoad, there are certainly two good enough to do that, the West Indies Cricket Board needs to understand a few things.
It needs to understand that West Indies cricket is not a franchise like the Dallas Cowboys or the New York Yankees, like Real Madrid or Manchester United; it needs to understand that it is a team selected from West Indians and West Indians only; it needs to understand that no one can build a strong West Indies team by developing West Indies players only; it needs to understand that any attempt to build a strong West Indies team by concentrating only on the West Indies team will end up making it weaker if only because there will be no continuity no one waiting in the wings; and regardless of all what is being said re: the abundance of talent around, it needs to understand that West Indies cricket is weak.
FUTURE OF WINDIES CRICKET
Just as how it cannot be bought, or cannot be sold, the West Indies cannot buy players. In other words, the West Indies have to produce and develop its own players, and regardless of who the board brings in, regardless of how many it brings in, and regardless of how good they are, it has to depend, as it always done, on the schools to produce the players, and on the clubs and then the territories to develop them.
The future of West Indies cricket lies with the schools, the clubs and the territories. It does not lie with foreign coaches, and the sooner the board realises that, the better it will be.
The board, the West Indies Cricket Board, needs to spend its money, whatever it has, wisely.
