Absence of true worth

Is this the effective end of the career of Brian Lara? And how badly will the promising future of Sarwan and Gayle, Edwards, Smith and Bravo be affected by the decision of the West Indies Cricket Board to punish the players for its own incompetence having failed to settle these matters before it signed the Digicel contract?

As we now know, the Digicel contract mandates the WICB to hand over all the players lock, stock and barrel and indeed West Indies cricket to the

telecommunications company by June/July 2005 or run the risk of losing out on the US$20 million contract at some point a clinical assessment must be made of the contract figure as it is been thrown in the faces of Caribbean people as if it is manna from heaven: how does US$4 million per year for five years stack-up against the exposure it will gain from West Indian cricket and the level of potential earnings from providing mobile services to the region? I would think the balance must certainly weigh heavily in favour of Digicel.

One of the problems we have in the region is the absence of the sense of our true worth. What is the worth of Garry Sobers, the greatest cricketer that ever walked the earth, trumpeting the message of Digicel?

As an aside, the first evening I saw Sir Garry, amongst greatest of all West Indians, being used by the telecommunications company, tears ran down my cheek. My son asked why? I was too choked up for a moment to tell him that West Indian society has so ignored this man to make him vulnerable to being a pappyshow for the WICB, the board having brought four Australians in to control WI cricket and wanting Sobers to cover their tails.

Before everyone we proclaim the generosity of Digicel to invest the US$20 million over a five-year period, has anyone calculated the exposure the corporation would get from WI cricket in the region and everywhere cricket is played and seen on television?

This is not goodwill or charity this is an investment that will bring lucrative rewards for the company and when we as West Indians begin to understand it in those terms we shall have a less rosy-eyed view of the telecommunications company and its intentions.

Similarly, do we have any appreciation of the monetary returns that have accrued to Cable and Wireless for its 20-year involvement in WI cricket?

If, as reported, C&W is to invest US$100 million in World Cup 2007, it will not be for purposes of philanthropy— that is not a word in the vocabulary of transnational corporations—bottom line considerations are all that matter, investment in social aspects of the society they operate in are part of the cost of doing business.

That brings us to what regional governments must do to find immediate resolution to this problem.

Caribbean governments, as a first initiative to putting the best team in the field against South Africa and Pakistan, led by their prime ministers must let the two companies know that it is not acceptable for them to be playing West Indian society off against itself.

And they must do so making the telecommunications companies aware that much is at stake for them.

Governments, such as Trinidad and Tobago, a potentially lucrative market in which Digicel has its designs, must not be afraid to barter with its market place on behalf of West Indian peoples and their cricket.

Similarly, Caribbean governments must also make it clear to the WICB that they cannot be easily ignored in this matter while expected to fork-out hundreds of millions of dollars of tax-payers monies that can meet basic needs of people to fund World Cup 2007.

Advocating that the governments gain some say in these matters does not suggest that the governments must follow the Sri Lankan Government example of dismissing the board. West Indian politics is much too fractious for the governments to have control of cricket. Among other things, governments will demand national representation on the team in keeping with their contribution; test matches will have to be played on any open piece of land in the tiniest of villages and this prime minister and that prime minister and their entourage will have to be given the boxes and on and on.

What I am saying is that the WICB, enfeebled because of ineffectiveness, cannot now resolve this matter and it’s the governments which have some leverage over the two telecommunications companies to prevent the loss of Lara and damage to the careers of six of our most talented players.

But governmental intervention in the immediate will only open the possibility for the major restructuring and transformation needed to save West Indian cricket from what now seems the inevitable permanent station amongst the likes of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

Months ago when the WICB imposed the Australians on West Indies cricket in the process insulting generations of players and a civilisation, this column said don’t expect the coaches to be able to revive the West Indies. Little has happened to demonstrate to the contrary and little can really happen. Keeping players sweating in the sun can do little to develop a wining culture so too will the daily doses of public relations not do the job.

What the governments must do is to task the WICB to develop a structure that could transform the cricket. The structure must include systems and programmes for development of the game in every island and Guyana; it

must utilise the great West Indians of the past and be planted on the foundation of the winning West Indian culture developed by Frank Worrell and Clive Lloyd.

The structures must include motivation and discipline, understanding of our young people and how to direct and guide them away from the decay of the popular culture.

In many ways, Caribbean corporations are themselves to blame for allowing Digicel to come from outside of the region to take up sponsorship of our cricket.

This column has in the past suggested that a dozen indigenous Caribbean companies should be willing sponsors of the development of the game, governments giving them the right incentives to do so.

In the absence of these transformational structures, Digicel may have pushed the WICB into a corner, but the corporation will not benefit from it neither will West Indian pride be returned to our societies.