#BTColumn – Ease off with your dissolution calls, Chris Dehring

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

By Tony McWatt

Former Cricket West Indies CEO, Chris Dehring has called for the dissolution of the West Indies cricket team and for the individual territories of the Caribbean to go it alone. Dehring’s sentiments were recently expressed in a  Jamaica Observer newspaper article as his personal response to the West Indies’ inglorious first-round exit from the 2022 ICC World Cup which has now reached its semi-finals stage. Coming from such an esteemed individual to whom West Indies cricket has provided so much personally, Dehring’s Chicken Little ‘The Sky Is Falling” advocation would be extremely disappointing to a greater majority of true Caribbean cricket fans and followers.

In the very first paragraph of the article, Dehring has accurately identified some of the symptoms of the precipitous decline that has been plaguing West Indies cricket in recent times. He has, however, dismissed as being completely irrelevant their individual and combined effects as contributory factors. 

“As if governance, management, selections or batting application are the root causes of the latest episode of an ever-downward, spiralling saga of indignity!” 

As accurate as he was in identifying such symptoms, he can rightfully be accused of being at least partially inaccurate by claiming as his validation of their irrelevance, that they have each been effectively addressed without any success. “We saw it coming years ago. We tried to stop it but were ineffective and helpless. So, we will swap out the personnel and try again with the promise of a new beginning. And they too will falter!”

In terms of the governance of West Indies cricket, Dehring is being downright dishonest in his suggestion that it has been effectively addressed to any degree. Within the last ten to fifteen years, a least three major Reports have been formulated with resulting indications that the governance of West Indies cricket is in dire need of a major overhaul. The Patterson, Justice Lucky and Caricom Cricket Committee Reports have all been almost completely ignored by successive Cricket West Indies (CWI) administrations.

Much the same can be said for both the overall management of West Indies cricket, as well as the selection of its teams. Utmost efficiency is not a description that can be justifiably applied to either regarding West Indies cricket. CWI’s Antigua-based administrative headquarters has long since become a citadel for the most basic administrative bungling imaginable. Almost every year for as long as anyone can now remember there have been glaringly obvious administrative errors emanating from CWI’s headquarters.

Team selections have also been error-plagued in recent times. The West Indies’ dismal performance at last year’s World Cup, which resulted in its required participation in the preliminary qualifying round of this current 2022 edition, was directly attributable to its selection of a representative squad that was largely comprised of over-aged and unfit celebrity name players whose best used by dates had long since passed!

Dehring’s dismissal of batting application as a root cause of the West Indies’ “ever-downward, spiralling saga of indignity” is also unwarranted. Several great former West Indies players, including Sir Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Sir Vivian Richards, have publicly lamented the failure of West Indies batsmen of the current and recently past eras to accept personal responsibility for making the necessary corrections to their most obvious technical deficiencies. 

“West Indies cricket, that glorious institution we rightly adore, is a beautiful idea whose time has passed,” says Dehring. He then goes on to justify his suggestion with the following expressed sentiments: “ There is to state the obvious, no nation called “the West Indies.” No national team can compete in the modern paradigm of professional sports without a national production line, structure and most importantly, resources. But Caribbean governments can’t justify investing in this institution without obvious national or political benefits to be derived. Neither is there a proper professional cricket infrastructure. We have a semblance of one, but there is no managed production line from kindergarten to the pros.”

Here again, Dehring has identified with pinpoint accuracy one of the foundational causes for the decline in West Indies cricket. His contention that Caribbean governments need to have identifiable national or political benefits to justify their investment in providing the necessary production lines, structure and resources that would arrest the experienced decline, is also spot on. The question Dehring has conveniently sidestepped, perhaps as a result of his personal involvement as a former CEO, is to what extent CWI has even approached the governments of its member territories, either individually or collectively under the Caricom umbrella with official requests for required assistance.

Has CWI ever formally approached any Caricom member government with requests for job creation employment assistance that would have allowed the existing professional franchises of its participating members Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Windwards and Trinidad & Tobago to establish full-time staffed offices that would do the work necessary to create production lines and linkages from kindergarten schools to the pros? Has anyone within CWI’s administrative headquarters with its dozens of paid personnel, a current reality which might have even started under Dehring’s own tenure as CEO, ever conceived of a list of identifiable benefits for presentation to Heads of Governments or their relevant Ministers that would possibly justify their provision of the assistance requested of them?

The answer to both questions would most likely be a resounding no. Half-baked, mediocre efforts towards the resolution of an issue don’t count for much. 

The reality is that the West Indies cricket’s former achieved heights of global domination as one of the most successful teams ever in the history of any sport was based on a four-pillar foundation which has now all been dismantled. For it to be restored, therefore, simply requires the reconstruction or satisfactory replacement of each of those four pillars.

The first of those pillars was the widespread popularity of cricket itself throughout the Caribbean to such a degree that almost every male child from the moment they knew themselves wanted to be the next great West Indies cricketer. Not so today, as cricket’s popularity has fallen significantly in terms of both participation as well as spectator attendance at Caribbean-hosted international matches.

The second pillar was a preponderance of well-known heroes for young aspiring cricketers to emulate. From George Headley, the three Ws, Ramadhin and Valentine, to Sobers, Kanhai, Gibbs, Hall and Griffith, there were well-known, readily identifiable heroes in abundance that were worthy of emulation. 

Pillar number three was the sense of pride and national hero type recognition that was associated with becoming a West Indies player that existed to such a degree as to influence every aspiring cricketer to do whatever was necessary on their own violation to become the very best. Sir Gary Sobers speaks of his tendencies, even before he had entered his teens, to go play cricket with and against elders several years his senior in the Baylands area of Barbados where he was born and raised. Lance Gibbs recalls bowling at a single stump for hours each and every day as means of developing his spin and accuracy.

 The final foundational pillar for West Indies, rise to greatness was the availability of English County and League cricket which allowed the Caribbean region’s most talented players to further hone their skills through an engagement in the rigorous requirements of professional cricket. It was no mere coincidence that every member of the West Indies’ all-conquering teams of the mid-seventies through to the early nineties had been professionally schooled by their involvement in English county or League cricket.

The dismantling of each of those four pillars and the crumbling of their associated foundation are the identifiable root causes for the decline in West Indies cricket. Instead of suggesting the dissolution of the West Indies team in deference to countries like his own native Jamaica going on their own, Dehring with all his brilliance and experience should instead be identifying workable solutions. The ultra-efficient application of which would halt its decline and restore West Indies cricket to its former glory.

As to the required financial resources, Dehring should be reminded that with Guyana’s recent oil discovery Exxon one of the world’s richest companies now has a presence in the Caribbean. The region itself also boasts several billion-dollar worth companies such as Demerara Distillers, producers of El Dorado Rums, Grace Kennedy, Sandals and many more. There are hundreds of very wealthy individuals who could be approached with requests for financial assistance to re-popularize cricket among school-aged children. Including Rihanna, who as the second-richest woman on the entire planet is well known for her love of cricket.

What now needs to be done is as readily apparent as is the availability of the required resources. The missing element until now has obviously been the required management efficiency of CWI administrations such as those that were headed by Dehring himself, as well as his successors!

About The Writer: Guyana-born, Toronto-based, Tony McWatt is the Publisher of both the WI Wickets and Wickets/monthly online cricket magazines that are respectively targeted toward Caribbean and Canadian readers. He is also the only son of the former Guyana and West Indies wicket-keeper batsman the late Clifford “Baby Boy” McWatt.