Source: Daily Express
SHOULD the different islands that makeup West Indies cricket become separate cricketing countries?
This is not the first time such an idea has come up for debate. This time around, though, the suggestion has come from outgoing International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman Greg Barclay in an article by Nick Hoult in The Telegraph last week.
The genesis of the problem, he said, will stem from shrinking revenues from future media rights deals, which will have a “seismic impact” on the smaller nations like West Indies.
He said that while “legacy and tradition are important”, the fact is that T20 cricket is what is going to grow the game and pay the bills.
He said countries are spending 80% of their time thinking about Test cricket.
“We are rooted in this sort of outmoded and outdated thinking. So, I think that’s going to have to change if we want to sustain the game moving forward.”
“You look at the West Indies. I love what they’ve done for the game. But is the West Indies in its current form sustainable? Is it time for them to break into each of their islands?” Barclay said.
“The thing is, can they [West Indies] afford to [continue to play Test cricket]? They barely can make their books balance now.”
“But I think one thing that will kind of highlight all that will be with the Olympics and other multi-sport events. They played cricket in the Asian Games last year in China, and you’ve got the African Games, [where] cricket featured for the first time. They’re looking at the Pan American Games. So, when you’ve got all these multi-sport events, what happens then to the Windies? The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Barbados, turned up as the participant for the region. Is that a little glimpse of what the future looks like? I don’t know,” Barclay added.
But former T&T cricketer Andre Lawrence said for territories to go on their own will be a “calamity”.
“You can have an inter-island competition to decide your Olympic representative, but certainly, I don’t see anything but a strong West Indies as the best thing to represent the region on the world stage because we don’t have the numbers,” Lawrence explained.
“It is only six representative nations that take part in the regional (West Indies domestic) tournaments, and from that, there are 15 players per team on average, that is just 90 players to choose your best players from to represent the region in three formats. If you break that down to individual islands, you simply won’t get the quality of players to choose for the world stage. It is going to be a calamity. I truly believe in a strong West Indies as being the best to offer,” he added.
But former CWI director Baldath Mahabir believes Barclay’s suggestion is a “serious option” worthy of consideration from the Caribbean governments.
“Sharing that platform as a Caribbean entity, I think that time has passed,” Mahabir said.
“I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that two things will certainly come to pass in our sporting future. CWI will cease to exist, and white-ball cricket will be the primary focus of cricket-playing countries in the Caribbean,” he added.
Referring to the reduced funding that will prevail if the West Indies, which is currently a full member of the ICC, disbands into affiliate members, Mahabir said it will always be difficult for people at the helm of an organisation to give up an “easy meal ticket” to go and work harder However, he explained, “we also see success stories,” namely, “Jamaican athletics and netball, the rise of St Lucia in athletics and we see gold medals in the Olympics spreading through the Caribbean in different sports.”
He added: “My view is that we don’t need to put our eggs in the collective basket where cricket is concerned despite all the tradition, the time has come to seriously examine the merits and demerits of playing cricket on our own as individual Caribbean islands.”
“I had made that call about ten years ago, but to me, we are closer to that point today than we were in 2014/2015…I do not doubt in my mind that in the Caribbean, Test cricket will become almost extinct, and each territorial board will go it alone in the shorter format.”