#BTSpeakingOut – Disband CWI, leave cricket transformation to Caribbean countries

The state of West Indies Cricket certainly saddens all of us in the Caribbean. We have now hit an all-time low. We have dug ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole. It hurts many of us tremendously but where are we really? 

West Indies Cricket has played a significant role in building a Caribbean identity and moreover transforming the Caribbean people. However, if we, as a Caribbean, are to further transform, I think Cricket West Indies needs to be disbanded. 

I am a full supporter of regional integration and unity within the West Indies, but I think it is clear that we have not found the solution to dealing with our challenges. CWI is tasked with charting a developmental path for West Indies Cricket but has failed to do so for the last 30 years. Our colonial territorial past is still very much etched within our cricketing system and the art of territorial politics has crept more and more into it. 

It is time now we as a Caribbean people seriously question the gatekeepers of West Indies Cricket. Each individual country should now take charge of the development of its own cricket. Private Public Partnerships can be the driving force of social, financial and cricketing development within the countries similar to what is done in the majority of the cricketing countries globally. We cannot be solely dependent on financing from the ICC.

Secondly, if the CWI is still to operate, let that body be the guiding agency for the individual countries. I believe this can go a long way in developing and honing talent internationally. Similar to how the USA has risen through the ranks in recent times through the financial investment and the development of grassroots programmes, we can do the same in our individual countries as it is being done already. I do believe  we have some of the most talented players, coaches, sports scientists and administrators who can transform our cricket within our countries. It is evident Cricket West Indies is not utilising them.

It will be a bold step and we will have to start from the bottom and make our way to the top. But as a youngster coming up in this and understanding the role West Indies cricket played in transforming Caribbean people in the late 1950’s to 1990’s it is certainly embarrassing now more than ever. 

As my senior fellow cricket enthusiast Senator John Rogers once said, the West Indies cricket team is playing for a united Caribbean that has never, and will never exist. I leave it there for now.

Taahir Bulbulia  ]]>