#BTColumn – Time for a fresh start

Every four years there is a Cricket World Cup. The West Indies team won the first two Cricket World Cups in 1975 and 1979, and were runners up in 1983. We were champions of this sport, but have been in the basement of the eight top cricketing nations’ rankings for so long that it was only a matter of time before we would not qualify for a major tournament. That time has come.

This year, we did not qualify for the 2023 Cricket World Cup. The new head coach reportedly wants the players to believe in themselves and in the team. The captain wants a “fresh start” and our support. Beliefs and fresh starts require firm foundations. Our support requires an exceptionally difficult conversation.

Our players are talented, winning matches against much higher-ranked opponents. Our players are also hard-working, doing what coaches ask of them during practice. But in competitive sports, talent and hard work must stand on firm foundations – and our boys had them.

Our players qualified for a place on the West Indies team full of promise. They were trained by school coaches and had the support of their families, schools and churches. Then something seems to go terribly wrong soon after they join the team.

Corrupting the foundation 

Encouraging young players to become connoisseurs of liquor, to distinguish the good stuff from the ordinary, could harm their otherwise promising careers. Engaging in  sexual exploits could expose them to a host of curable and incurable sexual-transmitted diseases.

We used to watch hopefully when our players started a new tour, but are now accustomed to them playing the first part of the tour with energy, and the remainder in a lethargic manner. When I questioned past team managers on these consistent observations, the problem was revealed.

Despite having a curfew, our players would be encouraged to revel, and even bring women in their rooms. What we saw on our television screens, as we willed them to win, may have been players too tired from the night’s activities to play consistently at the level required of professional athletes.

Senior players should mentor younger players to reach higher standards, but they may be incapable of doing this if they were badly mentored. Leading younger players down a path of clubbing, liquor and promiscuity can only erode their foundations, thus sustaining the practice of bad mentorship.

When senior players’ foundations have decayed to the level where their performance is unreliable, they are replaced by new players, full of promise, but destined to be mentored by players whose foundations are already corrupted.

At the end of their careers, old mentors may use their fame to market liquor to a wider audience. Some may boast about their ability to hold their liquor and their sexual exploits – as if those were honourable achievements. Such is the illusion that a decayed foundation may have on the mind of one who still thinks it can support him.

Coach selection?

So, what is the solution? We had one. In January 2019, we employed a coach to prepare our team for the England tour in February 2019 and the World Cup in May 2019. He seemed to recognise the problem – our players needed stern fatherly direction. The change appeared immediate – we won the test series 2-1, our first series win over the much higher-ranked England in ten years.

In our excitement, we momentarily forgot that we do not care about real success, only appearances – we just want to look good. We decided that the glory of winning the World Cup must not be given to this coach – who happened to be white – so we fired him.

The players wanted their coach but were told that they needed a coach that could “get along with the boys”. The World Cup results for our team were foreseen. Other teams came prepared to play cricket, we came prepared to compete with designer shades and earrings. Of the ten teams in the tournament, we ended second from the bottom, only higher than war-torn Afghanistan.

We keep hoping for some nostalgic solutions to improve the West Indies cricket team, when all that is needed is to write two clauses in the players’ contracts and enforce them with zero-tolerance.

The first is that no alcohol must be consumed from the start of the training camp until the end of the final match of a tour. The second is that during a tour, curfews will be strictly enforced to allow players eight hours of sleep.

Will our players object? Of course. But we should remind them that we have tolerated their wayward ways for far too long and are dissatisfied with their inconsistent performance – so it is time for a fresh start.

Grenville Phillips II is a Doctor of Engineering and a Chartered Structural Engineer. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com ]]>