Sarwan, Gayle to the rescue

Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle did what the WICB, Caricom governments and the people of the region failed to do: force Cable and Wireless, one of the two transnational corporations fighting over the regional market for tele-communications services, into a position where it had to relent.

In the face of the refusal of the two corporations and the WICB to go along with the proposals of the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on cricket, the two players unilaterally terminated their contracts with C&W and in the process dared the company to take legal action against them and then face the wrath of the Caribbean community.

The Gayle/Sarwan dare forced C&W to understand there was no other option than to free the players of their contracts and allow the independent arbitrator, Justice Saunders, to examine the contracts.

Cable and Wireless has gone further to assure that if the judge finds points of conflict between team and individual sponsorship in the contracts the company would be willing to suitably amend its contracts with the seven players.

Now why was such a concession, with some give and take too from Digicel, not arrived at long before the first Test? Simple, no pressure was exerted on the corporations before the Gayle/Sarwan move. Indeed, the pressure was imposed on the board by the Digicel memo, deliberately leaked to the press to force the WICB into a corner.

And when the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee attempted to win compromise from the transnationals, Prime Minister Owen Arthur openly disagreed (almost as if the sub-committee’s effort should be thwarted) with the approach taken by his colleague Prime Minister, Dr Keith Mitchell, saying that the chairman was over-stepping his bounds.

Can you imagine how that signal from Bridgetown strengthened the resolve of Digicel: a prime minister telling the Irish company that this Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee can do nothing to force you to compromise?

Across Caricom there was silence amongst the leadership. The T&T Prime Minister is reported to have met quietly with the Digicel chairman. Notwithstanding holding the most lucrative market in the region, one that Digicel is angling to get into, as leverage over the transnational, Prime Minister Manning obviously failed to force Digicel to relent.

The other Prime Ministers simply put their tails between their legs as the two corporations did as they pleased with WI cricket.

It was yet another occasion when, instead of the co-ordination of its foreign policy as set out in the Treaty of Chaguaramas, Caricom found itself hopelessly divided when dealing with foreign corporations.

That, incidentally, is not a stretching of treaty obligations as corporations have emerged as amongst the most powerful of actors in international affairs, many of them having far more resources and clout than some countries.

Not surprising in the circumstances that the Grenadian Prime Minister, a man with a genuine love for cricket and an understanding of the importance of the game in West Indian society, is sure that Caribbean governments have to become part of a wider consultative process to direct the affairs of West Indian cricket:

“And because I feel genuinely so that governments have not taken the mantle of responsibility in directing and supporting the development of West Indies cricket, given the fact that cricket has so much impact on the way of life and economy in the region and we are not giving the kind of leadership to cricket, we are in fact marginalising our own economic potential.”

Asked further by this columnist for his perspective on the intervention of the Barbadian Prime Minister in the sub-committee’s negotiations with the WICB, the corporations and the players association, Dr Mitchell was forthright and instructive:

“That distance (between the governments and the development of WI cricket) has created some major problems for WI cricket and we should have a united effort and it should not be a personality issue at all, it should not be which country you’re prime minister of or you have interest in. I think it’s about West Indies cricket.”

But not only have the governments been divided and the board made ineffectual by its own incompetence and self-inflicted poverty, grabbing at Digicel’s cheque before ensuring that it could deliver on its contractual obligations, but in typical fashion people of the region have begun to pull and tug, fighting against ourselves.

The Guyanese have begun to swear Chanderpaul to be the best captain; a column in the Jamaica Observer contends that Wavell Hinds has to become, and soon, the captain and in the process replace Dinanath Ramnarine as president of WIPA; and, on the radio talk shows here, callers have recalled the old Trinidad feeling of victimhood, wronged, singled out for negative attention by the board’s decision not to reinstate Lara as captain.

And as always in contentious matters in places such as Trinidad and Guyana the spectre of race: Indian Chanderpaul versus African Lara has surfaced as an issue amongst callers as cause for contention. If there were a plan to divide and rule the scripting could not have been more detailed and diabolical.

At the same time that the region is being torn apart by the struggle between the corporations for market space and dominance, the inaction of governments and the WICB, little or no attention is being paid to the cricket. Have we, for instance, noticed how well this group of players has done in adverse circumstances?

During the passage last year of Hurricane Ivan, the West Indies team in the ICC series in England found the resolve to come good to mitigate the suffering of people at home.

Here again the region is inflicted with contention and dislocation, resulting this time from man-made months of contention and Chanderpaul, Hinds and the bowlers said to themselves that they had to do something on the field to relieve the hurt and restore the pride.

What are the lessons of adversity saying about mobilising the team to out-perform itself? How are those lessons to be incorporated into training and strategy as agents of motivation? Do Caribbean corporations understand the worth of WI cricket as a tool for marketing their products and services in the same manner that the foreign corporations know the value of being associated with the WI team?

Chanderpaul and his men should be highly commended for using the moment in Guyana to demonstrate skill, determination and resolve but WI cricket is still deep in the mire.

When the board delivers “clean players” to Digicel in June/July, the corporation’s hold on WI cricket will be unbreakable and dictation of the pace will be complete.