Diabolical failures, gross neglect
The influential and well-connected caribbeancricket.com website has launched a stinging attack on the West Indies Cricket Board in the aftermath of the shambles that was the ten-ball Antigua Test
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
AFP
The influential and well-connected caribbeancricket.com website has launched a stinging attack on the West Indies Cricket Board in the aftermath of the shambles that was the ten-ball Antigua Test. As so many are doing, the article asks how the match was even allowed to start.
International cricket teams do not simply turn up on the morning of the first day of a Test match and find that the venue is wholly atrocious for any level of cricket. There are several standard checks and assessments which should have been put in place by the WICB to ensure that exactly what transpired at the Sir Viv Richards Stadium this morning never occur. There must have been a series of diabolical failures and gross neglect on the part of the assigned officer for it to have reached the stage where the Caribbean is left to suffer the utter humiliation now being rightfully dished out. What should have been those checks and balances? And who, specifically, was responsible?
The answer, according to the website, is chief cricket operations manager Tony Howard.
What was Howard doing? Was there a recce of the Sir Viv Richards Stadium? Who executed it? What was their report? Or was the recce a mere joyride around the Caribbean for Howard while he collected valuable per diem?
Angry stuff. But on a day the cricket in the Caribbean has been shamed, it is quite understandable.
In the Times, Mike Atherton says that heads must roll in the WICB after the latest shambles. He wonders why no match was played before the Test to test the suitability of the conditions at the ground.
Mike Selvey writes in the Guardian that the abandonment of the Test was "was not just a disgrace but another disastrous setback for the name of international cricket at a time, especially in the Caribbean, when it needs all the help it can get".
His colleague Andy Bull says that at a time when cricket needs an efficient Jeeves-like person in charge, it's left with a whole lot of bumbling Bertie Woosters. He suggests that the third Test should be moved to Barbados as the Antigua Recreation Ground isn't currently in a good-enough condition to host a Test.
The ICC and its match referee Alan Hurst are the subject of Martin Samuel's ire in the Daily Mail. He says it was more than a match that was abandoned in Antigua: it was the integrity of a sport, and the trust of the people who watch it.
Writing in Independent, Stephen Brenkley laments a crass decision by the WICB to build their new house on sand.
Martin Williamson is executive editor of ESPNcricinfo and managing editor of ESPN Digital Media in Europe, the Middle East and Africa