Poor Leadership and Accountability in West Indies Cricket

Following a fantastic victory by the West Indies at Sabina Park last week, the ugly side of our regional parochialism reared its head at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua. Knowing very well that the stadium was not match ready, rather than doing what was best for cricket and the region, local politicians supported by inept West Indies Board leadership insisted that the match be played in the island. After less than 10 minutes, the scheduled 5-day game was abandoned due to poor playing conditions of the ground. Former player and now commentator Michael Holding and veteran broadcaster Tony Cozier weighed in on the issue.

Holding had this to say:

Michael Holding has slammed the lack of responsibility in West Indies cricket as the region comes to terms with yesterday's sensational abandonment of the second Test against England at the Sir Viv Richards Stadium in Antigua. The match lasted a mere 10 balls, owing to an outfield deluged in sand, and an unsurprised Holding was quick to point the finger at the WICB.


"We have seen things like this happen in the Caribbean before. Whenever we have things like this happening, like in 1998 when the Test match was abandoned [at Sabina Park], there were no repercussions," Holding said in an audio interview with Cricinfo. "And I suspect there will be no repercussions either. No one will lose their jobs; no one will be asked to resign. If you ask the people responsible whether they will resign, they'll just say 'but why? Why should we resign?' So it will happen again. Once you have no repercussions, you will always have repeats.


"It will hit home for the next two weeks. But after two weeks, everyone will move on. That is the way things operate around here when people have no repercussions, when people don't suffer for their mistakes or their incompetence. If you don't suffer for your incompetence, everything moves on. Whenever anything goes wrong, no one suffers."


Tony Cozier had this to say:

Yesterday's fiasco presented the latest, most dramatic explanation for the sudden decline of West Indies cricket, from its unprecedented excellence of the 1980s to the mediocrity of the past two decades. It was yet another example of the politics and the mismanagement that has undermined a game that once elevated this small, impoverished and otherwise insignificant part of the world from third to first world status.


Its timing is most inopportune, coming immediately after the West Indies' most significant victory in years. The passionate public, so disenchanted with prolonged failure, was energised again by the result in the first Test and, more especially, the manner of it.


In less than a week, the euphoria of Sabina Park has been doused. It should not have come to this. There had been repeated problems with the outfield at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium since it was one of the expensive new stadiums constructed around the Caribbean for the 2007 World Cup.


It was sited, against repeated advice from locals, in a basin near a well-known water course. As everywhere else, an elaborate draining system was installed yet, as forecast, water from overnight rain collected on parts of the outfield and disrupted two matches. It meant remedial work had to be done on the offending areas.
Without any trial, a Test against Australia was again assigned to the ground last season. Once more, parts of the outfield became a bog, and almost a full day's play was lost, all told in a drawn match, in spite of hot, sunny weather.


The warning signals were not heeded by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). Politics kicked in and it assigned the England Test on the say-so of the government-appointed stadium committee, the Antigua Cricket Association and, ultimately, the Leeward Islands Cricket Association (LICA), the WICB's relevant member board, that all would be right on the day.


As usual, the buck for this embarrassment will be passed around, but there is only one place for it to stop, at the WICB headquarters just a few miles down the road towards St John's, and the Antigua Recreation Ground (ARG) which will now be reactivated to ease the shame.