Cozier, come better than that! (27 January 1999)

27 January 1999

Cozier, come better than that!

The Trinidad Express

On December 31, under the headline "Recounting our Chickens", we carried an article written by Tony Cozier on the situation of the West Indies team in South Africa. The piece that follows is the response that Cozier's article provoked from Antigua Outlet editor Tim Hector in the issue of Friday January 8.

On that same date, under the headline "No, no, no, Mr Cozier", we carried in these pages another article written by Hector in response to Cozier's report on the Second Test between West Indies and South Africa.

Tony Cozier, as cricket writer and commentator, has always had and will always have my respect.

For unlike myself he is conservative in thought and style. Freedom is for the one who thinks differently. Cozier rarely expresses an opinion. Instead, he relies upon his selection of empirical data to lead to an irresistible conclusion. Or, what in the critique of anthropology is known as establishing "the facticity of fact."

In his piece, published on Old Year's Day, Cozier falls short of his own high standards.

He claims, as Malcolm X did in a similar crisis, to his own chagrin, that the chickens are coming home to roost in West Indies cricket, hence it has plummeted, featherless to rock bottom.

What are those chickens, or rather, less metaphorically, what are the causes of the decline in West Indies cricket?

Cozier contends the chickens, or causes of decline are all in the Board. The Board winked at disciplinary problems created by players when it should have cracked down. The build-up of winks and raps on the knuckles has led to terminal breakdown. Yet Cozier refuses to say that David Holford, one of the longest-serving managers never reported any felonies or misdemeanours. Could the Board act on what was not properly before it? Legally, it could not. By the rules of natural justice it could not. And that is all that matters.

"The behaviour of some of the most prominent players left a lot to be desired." Cozier hardly gives an example, but relies on Malcolm Marshall's assertion, nearing the end of his playing days, that "Everything seems to be going down the drain. There is no respect, no manners."

But let us accept that as a given.

My response to that is simple. Everywhere in West Indian society today "there is no respect, no manners." Players, or cricketers, are not immune from the problems of their society. Though they may not articulate them, they represent aspects of the wider societal problems, and their behaviour inevitably reflects such.

Why then is there "no respect and no manners" in West Indian society and cricket teams? The answer is simplethe old plantation model on which West Indian society was founded has collapsed, and nothing has replaced it-yet.

Value-wise we are in a muddle. We no longer do "the done thing"; instead, we do "our own thing". There are thus as many styles of "behaviour", of "respect", of "manners" as there are individualists. Individualism is rampant.

A Frank Worrell could command respect, by virtue of his knowledge, cricket and academic knowledge. A Garfield Sobers, who unlike Frank Worrell, did not have one of the great secondary schools behind him, could command respect entirely on the basis of his herculean personal effort, which his rare all-round talents, as batsman extraordinaire, fielder non-pareil, and bowler in many styles, inspired. Clive Lloyd as a representative from the Sobers era, brought a sense of the avuncular, the senior statesman, who, at the same time, was one of the boys, standing by and with them in rebellion, and storming their way back in unison into the mainstream. Viv Richards relied on a boundless zeal to motivate, as well as the conscious or unconscious recognition that the Board did not want him, he, incredibly winning the captaincy by only one vote over Malcolm Marshall! As a representative of the smaller islands, he simply could not afford to lose, hence his "by any means necessary"-Malcolm X again-approach.

None of the above matter any more. There is a serious break, even a dichotomy in consciousness. The current players to a man, all believe that the players, of the Lloyd era and before, envy them their bountiful pay packets. A dialogue between past and present is mostly a dialogue of the deaf.

Richardson and Walsh, for a time, succeeded on the basis that they were important figures in the great team of the 80s and so commanded respect on this basis of upholding pride, West Indian pride.

Not the Board, but the Board President undermined Richardson, when on the last England tour, Peter Short, as WICBC President, restored Lara, after Lara had abdicated upon his failed mutiny. It was a disastrous decision. Short came up short. The Board eventually overruled its President and insisted on punishing Lara, for his Mutiny on the Bounty. Lara refused to tour Australia, and never trusted the Board thereafter. In this, he was encouraged by his own insular Board, with Alloy Lequay foremost. Alloy Lequay, as Chief Executive Officer of Trinidad and Tobago cricket could not respect the rules of a Board member, and stand behind its collective decisions, in keeping with collective responsibility. He preferred to walk both sides of the street, at the same time. The old order too, was not standing by the values it claimed to espouse. Younger and older generation refused to play by the rules.

Hooper, too, was punished by the Board for playing truant after the fretful and fateful last England tour, and he refused to play in the 1996 World Cup. His Guyanese Board, thankfully, did not support his errant and erratic ways.

But notably, Cozier forgot to mention or ignored altogether, the one decision that undermined confidence of the players in the Board. The dropping of Haynes, the faithful Haynes, because he had missed a single Red Stripe game. The martinets, led by Peter Short, had hauled out their long knives in a midnight massacre of Haynes. Every player expected the same from a Board that seemed, clearly in Haynes's instance, either spiteful, or inconsiderate of exceptional contribution.

Cricket-wise, the Haynes slaughter undermined our openers. There was no senior opener in Haynes to nurture younger partners. West Indies cricket has not recovered from that disaster. Those who boycotted a most important Test Match for the still unknown Anderson Cummins could not raise a whimper for the renowned Desmond Haynes. The confusion of values in a muddled society is self-evident.

Cozier's favourite song, on which he harps like a scratched record, is that in the last Australian tour here "some players were seen night-clubbing to the early hours during a Test the West Indies lost by ten wickets".

They were, of course, Leewards players, who went to hear the Burning Flames' new release, at a Barbados night club. How many times have players been out night-clubbing and the West Indies won by an innings! It is a facile point.

As long as cricket is played there will always be players who will go night-clubbing, be they English, Australian, Muslim, Pakistanis or Hindu Indians. Wally Hammond, an English player of the 30s, is now well known for his jousts and taking note of ladies that swung, early or late, away or into the bat. Sobers could stay out till foreday morning and still perform exceptionally. To each his own, in such matters.

Cozier is being a martinet, by putting so much store by a single night-club and quite ordinary episode. Like Malvolio, he seems to resent players who enjoy "cakes and ale".

What then, other than Cozier's strictures against the Rousseau Board, which he seems to abhor, granting it no constructive achievement whatever, not even the substantial pay raises which the players have received making them among the best paid cricketers in the world despite the small size and penurious state of our economies, yes, what else is responsible for the decline in West Indies cricket? Cozier, for sure, ignores his own evidence. That the players now in South Africa have sought "to decrease the physical training sessions they claim were too strenuous."

Physical training, rigorous physical training, is a pre-requisite to "mental toughness" and developing "commitment", "focus", "discipline" and "responsibility". It is the one factor, which separates this era of sports from all hitherto existing sporting eras. The industrial-military based societies have made boot-camp military training an essential part of the psychological foundation for our Test match encounters.

It is fair to say that not the side with the most talent succeeds in sport today but the side that has the better physical and strategic preparation is the surer winner. Hence our drubbing at the hands of South Africa. It is remorseless. Talent alone is far from enough.

Case in point: Brazil in the last World Cup this year was thrown by the freak illness of star player Ronaldo. They did not, in consequence, do their last preparatory physical routines. The great Samba Brazilians played like zombies in the finals against France.

Likewise in South Africa now. After failing to prepare in the one-week camp in South Africa, our players are now ducking physical training sessions, claiming they were too strenuous. It is a sure recipe for disaster. The West Indies cannot, better, have not batted for 85 overs, let alone the 90 overs of a single day's play in the intensity of South Africa's fielding, blocking or stopping their best shots. Physically unprepared, under pressure, they crack, not so much in rash shots, but in inexplicable ways, like Lara's hit-wicket, or Hooper's run-out for 86 in the first innings of the Fourth Test. Hooper looked as jaded as if he had made 172 without respite. He could not locomote in the middle of the third run. Lara was physically afraid, hence his jump-back from outside his crease onto his wicket!

The disaster of a whitewash is now upon us. Blaming the Board is knee-jerk and mindless scapegoating. Boards facilitate cricket. Good cricket is played by well trained cricketers, regardless of the boards that administer them.

West Indies now need to look at their physical training methods and approaches to get the best out of our best players. Those who cannot and will not participate in prescribed training programmes, backed by strategic planning, have no place in modern cricket.

What now finally? Cozier's contends that "The moment the Board acceded to their striking players' summons to Heathrow 5,000 miles away from the headquarters of West Indies cricket in Antigua, it rendered itself more or less redundant".

This sounds good as words stitched together. It sounds good as colonial authoritarianism: Let the Players be damned if they will not come. Mountains don't go to Mohammed, nor Lighters to Steamers, etc., etc. That is old colonial behaviour. Rousseau by going to London, after asking the players to come to Antigua and the Board would stand all expenses, displayed respect for the larger issues involved, rightly ignoring-though noting-the anti-national behaviour in the players' refusal. Rousseau ought to be commended, not denounced as "more or less redundant." Leaders too, must eat humble pie, from time to time.

Cozier, for sure, ought to be reminded that the current decline of West Indies cricket has not a little to do with the decline of cricket in Barbados, for nearly 70 years the backbone of West Indies cricket. The Great House of West Indian batsmanship built by the great George Challenor, equally great as the three Ws, now produces merely Philo Wallace as Barbados' contribution to West Indian Test batsmanship! Not even in medicine are backbones replaceable. Cozier would better serve West Indies cricket were he to turn his critical eye on Barbados, and not join the populist chorus which scapegoats the Board. It could well be rewarding, especially to West Indies cricket.

Be reminded that my regard for Cozier remains high, as does my regard for West Indies cricket.

The decline was inevitable. The reconstruction is with new physical and, therefore, psychological preparation of players as if marching as to war is the thing.

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)