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Jan 21, 2009 Sports
No teenagers to play for Windies senior team?
By Sean Devers in Barbados
As I sat here with friends of five different Caribbean nations and two young black students from the USA watching the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first black President of the World’s most powerful nation, the emotion ran high and I felt uplifted by this inspirational leader.
As the pictures continued on the TV and many opined that any dream can come true with hard work and committed leadership, I spoiled my mood by reading the on-line version of one of Guyana’s newspapers and realized that my dream of seeing West Indies cricket rise again might also remain a dream because of those who run the region’s number one sport.
I read in the Kaieteur News, Guyana’s largest selling Newspaper that West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) President Julian Hunte wants to positively involve the media in West Indies cricket as all stakeholders make a contribution to the development of the game in the region and I felt hopeful.
I then clicked on the Stabroek News website and my hopes were dashed as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the WICB, Dr Donald Peters, continues to make irresponsible statements to the media concerning West Indies cricket.
If the story is accurate, Peters’ discloser that an age eligibility clause might be criteria for West Indies selection paints the regional Board as an entity whose executives have very little practical knowledge of cricket or cricketers.
According to the Guyana
paper “Peters said that recommendations will now be made to have certain criterion put in place before players can be selected to the senior team. Apart from appearances, an age eligibility clause might be introduced which will see no teenagers playing for the WI senior team. This, Dr. Peters said will have to get the blessing of the full board and it might be introduced by mid year”.
I hope that Chairman of selectors Clyde Butts, himself a former Test player, does not agree with such nonsense.
While it is true that our present players seem less matured than their International counterparts and too many players are ‘blooded’ without little First-Class experience, to say that the new clause (if ratified by the board) ‘will see NO teenagers playing for the West Indies senior team’ is absurd.
It is the selector’s job to decide which of the talented teenagers in the region are mentally ready for elevation to the senior team and if in their judgment none are, then don’t pick them.
An official clause prohibiting the selection of a gifted teenager just because of his age would be a breach of natural justice to that player and a loss to West Indies cricket.
Does Dr Peters know that his fellow Barbadian Sir Garry Sobers (the greatest cricketer to walk the face of the Earth) made his First-Class debut as a 16-year-old and his Test debut the next year? Is the learned Doctor aware that ICC’s number one-ranked test batsman and Cricketer-of-the-Year, Guyana’s Shivnarine Chanderpaul became Guyana’s youngest Test player in 1994 as a 19-year-old? Does he know that cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar scored the first of his record 41 Test centuries at age 17?
So if by chance we produce another cricketing genus in the West Indies some foolish clause by a board made of an assortment of people who have never played high-level cricket, will delay his entry into the senior side?
Only last week Peters told the Trinidad Guardian, “I am happy to announce that this money being used to run the regional first-class series is not from a loan but from our resources that we have put away, in order to keep our cricket going. This will tell you that the board is a well-financed and well-run unit and is not being mismanaged,” after the WICB failed to find a sponsor for both its regional One-Day and First-Class tournaments.
All of the recent off-the field blunders by the WICB has hurt West Indies cricket even more than the sub-standard performances by most of the players on it and if Peters honestly feels that the WICB is a well-run unit then we are in a worse position than imagined.
Regional journalist Ezra Stuart of the Barbados Nation said it is really perplexing to hear Peters speak about depending on the regional team winning to help attract sponsorship in the wake of the current global financial crisis.
“The WICB needs to do an introspection of why there is no sponsorship of its senior regional competitions. Is there presently a marketing and advertising specialist on the WICB’s staff to promote its product? Stuart asked.
“West Indies cricket is a brand that should not suffer from lack of sponsorship, but the myriad mistakes and administrative hiccups that have resulted in controversy after controversy, have turned away corporate partners. The latest being the Stanford/Digicel public row which was only settled after the telecommunications giants won a court battle.
How does the WICB expect sponsors to come on board when on its website, under domestic tournaments, you see Carib Beer Cricket Series and directly underneath it, The 2007/08 cricket series bowls off on January 4, 2008,” Stuart reasoned.
Up to yesterday, I clicked on domestic tournaments on the WICB website and was not too surprised to find that it had still not been updated by the staff of the ‘well-financed and well-run unit’ known as the West Indies Cricket Board.
The Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) elections are set for Sunday and whoever wins, it is hoped that in 2009 the GCB will finally have its own website and sometime in the near future an indoor practice facility so that lack of practice because of rain will no longer be a setback for our regional teams.
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