Cricket finds new ally - PR

The use of public relations practitioners raised a few eyebrows in the battle for the presidency of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA).

But as Al Gilkes, managing director of Al-Hart PR Inc., sees it, there should have been no surprise.

Cricket impacts on the psyche of Barbadians and this spills over to the regional and international level, he argued. For this reason, every aspect of the sport must be dealt with professionally.

Gilkes said this was one of the reasons why he got involved in Sir Conrad Hunte's successful campaign to lead the BCA.

"We are talking about cricket, a sport that either emotionally or in some other way affects every living person in Barbados. It is an activity so all-important and meaningful to the lives of Barbadians, I think it is justifiable that a programme, whether at the public relations level or any level, should be brought to bear to ensure that the right decisions are made," Gilkes said.

"[Cricket] is thrown into the pond and ripples around the world so everything about it should be professional - the leadership and the lead-up to the decision-making should also be done at a professional level."

Aside from this, when Gilkes was approached by Sir Conrad, who had been very helpful when he toured South Africa in 1994, he grasped the opportunity to repay the favour. It was the first time that the services of a public relations company was engaged.

Tony Marshall, who was defeated by Sir Conrad, also employed JER Associates for a similar job.

Chief executive of JER, Ricardo Blackman, is out of the country.

Gilkes said Sir Conrad had been out of the island for about 30 years and that this was one of the more difficult challenges they faced as circulating "propaganda" ruled him out of the top post of the BCA for this reason.

"We countered that by establishing that his absence was not involved in activity extraneous to cricket ... and that we should be looking at encouraging him to use the experience and talent to achieve what he had done in South Africa."

Sir Conrad had spent seven years in South Africa working to develop talented cricketers.

Also, while he was known as a West Indian and Barbados cricket great, many of the present players did not know him. The strategy involved Hunte sending letters, calling members and meeting people where possible.

With debate raging about the fall in standards of domestic and West Indies cricket, they developed a slogan - Putting The C (Cricket) Back Into BCA.

They did not only target the 1 800 BCA members who had the right to vote.

"Because cricket is a religion in Barbados and with the disillusionment and dis-cussion on the fortunes of West Indies cricket, we needed to bring the wider Barbadian public into the election.

"All cricket fans wanted to see the leadership not just focussed on the infrastructural development, but on rebuilding cricket, the human element," he explained, knowing that popular opinion would influence the members.

The group set about to present Sir Conrad's "vision and all he intended to do for cricket and have it overshadow what was being presented by the other side".

This would seem to have worked as Sir Conrad won, even with the narrow 23 vote majority.

At times the campaign seemed to have political overtones, but it is now over and the post-mortems have been carried out.

The next campaign will be to convince Barbadians at large that cricket is being revived to its glory days and beyond, as Sir Conrad said.