West Indian cricketers of recent times have been often accused of thoughtless cricket
Commentary by Vaneisa Baksh17-Jun-2007
West Indies’ success in the Champions Trophy seems a long time ago now© Getty Images
West Indian cricketers of recent times have been often accused of thoughtless cricket. The accusation is more often than not delivered in foreign accents, dripping with a smugness that emphasises the pleasure in the perception. The subtext is that in a world that has invested heavily in training and education for its cricketers, the West Indies has dropped to the bottom of the class by dint of its neglect of the intellect.The current disarray, bearing all the features (and possible consequences) of bottle-throwing at a match, might well have been avoided if the parties involved, especially the administrators, had grasped the importance of developing an intellectual understanding of the global environment that has shifted the centre of the game so dramatically.The West Indies Cricket Board in particular would surely have been better prepared to deal with the situation had they troubled to educate themselves. The irony is that all the necessary information was provided seven years ago, by the cricketer/historian Hilary Beckles, in his two-volume work The Development of West Indies Cricket. With grim prescience Professor Beckles documented today’s scenes with such detail that he could have been writing the script.In the second volume, The Age of Globalization, his chapter on "The Post-Lara Generation" sets out the changing social, economic and political circumstances that would shape the new global order in the game, and their effects. "The first concept to be fully abandoned relates to playing for one’s country as the ultimate priority – above self and beyond the grip of the market," he wrote. "The liberation of the individual player from the dictates of cricket boards and other non-playing officials is the objective of this process of change. Players will require their own agents to represent their financial interests in all negotiations with officials, and the team, as a collective, will be more clearly seen and understood as an aggregation in pursuit of maximum market returns. It is in this sense that cricket will finally shed its 19th-century aristocratic ideological baggage and go headlong into post-modernity."So then, the aristocratic baggage that had inclined CLR James to celebrate its values, its aesthetics, and its sheer artistry, has been left behind along with the nationalism that had once constructed the cricketer as ambassador, gentleman and hero. Our post-modern cricketers have now fully embraced the role that has already been played out by international cricketers for some time. The problem is that the West Indian Board – like many of the other boards – has been rudely awakened to the fact that its hold on cricket is no longer a stronghold, and that increasingly, the market belongs to commercial interests: sponsorships, broadcast rights, and cricketers.The past few years have seen more industrial-relations/remuneration-package disputes between boards and players (via their associations) than ever before. In the last three years Australia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and South Africa have all had turns at the bargaining tables, and they have all played hard-ball to garner maximum benefits from the now-popular status of the cricketer as sporting superstar. Individual rights to endorsement contracts, sponsorship shares, intellectual property, ownership of image … all of these have become prime assets of the modern cricketer. The claim to be a stakeholder is more closely affiliated to net profits than to love for the game.This is the new world order, and as it is hunkering down in the West Indies, the lack of understanding of the process taking place has led to mismanagement of the situation, one which will have serious implications for cricket in its post-modern incarnation. The latest episode, which will probably find temporary abatement after today’s meeting in Grenada, has its genesis in unresolved issues regarding the rights of sponsors, boards and players.It began when the West Indian board traded in its old telecommunications sponsor, Cable & Wireless, for a new one, Digicel. Shrewd parties both, they cleverly sought to maximise the returns on their investments. Cable & Wireless opted instead to become the regional sponsor for the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean, and pursued individual contracts with players. In both instances, they would still need to have some relationship with the Board. Digicel, offering not much more than C&W initially had, capitalised on the financial weakness of the WICB to extract as much as they could out of their sponsorship deal, but found their abilities to do so hindered by the existence of the C&W contracts.The situation first came to a head when the contractual arrangements for the triangular VB series in Australia were – belatedly, it seems – being finalised. The West Indies Players’ Association and the WICB eventually agreed to have the matter arbitrated by an independent adjudicator, appointed by Caricom, and to have no public discussions until a decision had been made. The adjudicator, Adrian Saunders – the acting chief justice of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States – found that the players could enter into personal endorsement contracts legitimately once it was done in his individual capacity and not as a member of the West Indian team. The Board and the players’ association accepted that, and the Australian tour went ahead.However, when the now-famous memo from Digicel’s sponsorship manager, Richard Nowell, was leaked to the media it exposed the level of hostility between Digicel and the players, especially those contracted to C&W. Digicel, it seems, tried to extract a few ounces more than their pound of flesh with some on-the-spot initiatives, without success.Part of Nowell’s explosive report reads: "At the same time, I approached several of the non-C&W players about `sponsored press columns’ running weekly and simply requiring a 15-minute conversation with a journalist. This was blocked by WIPA, even though a number of players repeatedly asked why. Again, through the Digicel player-fund decent sums of money [around US $300 per player] was offered for five columns. Contractually, Digicel had the right to continue with these initiatives and deal direct with consenting players as WICB had failed to put agreed players’ appearance tariffs in place."This excerpt mentions that the players had to consent, and that the Board had not put appearance tariffs in place. Nowell, obviously frustrated by his lack of success, reported that the players were following the lead of Brian Lara, who he determined to be the main culprit "preventing the execution of Digicel’s contractual rights with the WICB but also impacting on the credibility of Digicel".
Teddy Griffith: live broadcast throughout the Caribbean© Getty Images
On Friday, Teddy Griffith, the president of the WICB, made a live regional broadcast, outlining the parlous state of the Board’s affairs, and admitting that they were more than beholden to the sponsorship of Digicel, before he went on to inform a shocked West Indian populace that the players with individual Cable & Wireless contracts – Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Fidel Edwards, Ravi Rampaul and Dwayne Smith – would not be considered for selection to the team scheduled to meet South Africa in just over three weeks. The C&W players, he said, would have to produce copies of their contracts so the Board could verify that there were no infringements of either sponsor’s rights.The head of Caricom’s cricket sub-committee, the Grenadian Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell, immediately protested that Griffith had been too hasty with his ultimatum, and that he had agreed not to do anything as compromises were being offered by C&W, and a working solution seemed to be imminent. He also reiterated that the contracts in question had been seen by Mr Justice Saunders.Lara, meanwhile, issued a statement that he would do whatever it takes to help to resolve the crisis. "Believe me, if anyone can show me the solution and I felt I could influence a major change, I would respond like a shot," he said. "There are five parties directly involved in the overall problem – the West Indies Cricket Board; Digicel; the players themselves, including me; Cable & Wireless; and the West Indies Players Association."All those parties share one thing in common: their relationships are all directly connected to the WICB, which stands at the hub. Unfortunately, none of the relationships demonstrates any trust between any of the parties and the body at the centre. Nowell spotted that in his memo: "The majority of the players are allied to WIPA, and worryingly have no respect or relationship with their employers [WICB] and therefore Digicel."West Indians, accustomed to the Board’s circumventions, flat-footedness and secrecy, are still confident that following today’s meeting in Grenada, a compromise will be reached to allow Lara to lead the team in the series against South Africa.While that may be so, it will not be more than a temporary measure. The issues will not go away. The Board has been seen to have capitulated to the demands of Digicel, and the only plausible explanation for this is that the Board deems itself so unviable as a financial entity that it is on its knees before its latest sponsor. Digicel has earned itself no friends in the Caribbean for its perceived high-handedness in the affair. Why the Board is in such dire straits financially is another issue altogether.The West Indies Cricket Board and other commentators have made the point that sponsorship is hard to come by. The traditional lack of accountability and transparency within the Board, and the arbitrariness of some of its decisions have rendered it an unattractive entity for sponsors. West Indies cricket, once exciting and marketable, has not been attractive for some time, wrote Professor Beckles. He noted that cricket no longer held its position as a central bonding agent for West Indian nationhood, and would be forced to compete on a much more level playing field with other sports. Falling performance levels contributed to its diminished status.Educational reform was the answer, Beckles said, all through the Caribbean – and he recommended that cricketers take part in educational-development programmes to make them more competent players and citizens. The process, he suggested, would take time, and he predicted that if measures were introduced right away, then some consistent results would emerge by 2010.Nothing was done then. Another decade has been lost.Vaneisa Baksh is a freelance journalist based in Trinidad.