Uneasy truce hangs over Windies tour

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

THE West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) have been accused of squandering the dominance their team once had over the game, chronic maladministration, and swindling their current players.

But no-one can say they don’t know how to headline a press release. “General update on critical matters,” their recent missives was billed. Damn straight.

The WICB are being sued for US$41.97-million by India for their team’s audacity in abandoning their tour there last month because of a pay dispute with the WICB and the West Indies Players’ Association.

The Indians, who as one insider said “know the West Indians have no money”, also want half of the WICB’s earnings from rights sales for the next eight years. That could amount to US$50-million.

And, of course, South Africans are expecting the Windies in December for three tests, five one-day internationals and three T20s.

So, there are indeed critical matters that need updating.

Things looked up when the WICB named their squad this week for the test series against SA. But selected players who had not returned signed contracts to the board by Tuesday would not be allowed to tour. The board did not say whether any players had yet put pen to paper.

Eight of the 15 named were in the squad that mutinied in India: hardly a confirmation that a repeat non-performance will not happen in SA. The WICB stopped short of releasing their squads for the ODIs and T20s in SA, another reason not to be cheerful.

But the board were nonetheless “pleased to report that the parties are making progress”. Less reassuring is the fact that a task force established to “investigate the cause of the actions perpetuated by the players leading to the withdrawal of their services” has until December 13 to report back.

The test series starts in Centurion on December 17. If the players disagree with what the board-appointed task force says, what is to stop them packing their bags and heading for OR Tambo International?

The players are satisfied that two of their major issues - payment for image rights and their share of revenue from the 2015 World Cup - are being addressed. That has softened their stance, but there are many more challenges where those come from.

“The shift in culture has been too long in the wrong direction and it will take quite a while to move back to focus on consistent excellence,” a denizen of that culture, who would like to keep his job and thus declined to be named, said.

In the past seven years the WICB have ignored the main recommendations made in two separate governance reviews. Among them is that fewer suits should do more work.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because retired judge Chris Nicholson told Cricket SA (CSA) much the same thing in March, 2012. CSA wriggled out of some of Nicholson’s most important points and sports minister Fikile Mbalula broke his promise that “whatever the retired judge recommends I will implement”.

Perhaps the Windies’ players can learn something from that. Doubtless, their board will.