Gayle situation just distracts from real problems
In the Trinidad Express , Fazeer Mohammed says Chris Gayle's call for Caricom leaders to intervene in his stand-off with the WICB will be answered only with talk and no action
Dustin Silgardo
25-Feb-2013
In the Trinidad Express, Fazeer Mohammed says Chris Gayle's call for Caricom leaders to intervene in his stand-off with the WICB will be answered only with talk and no action. The problem, Mohammed writes, is that cricketing controversies hold the attention for a short span of time and are not meaningful enough to induce political action. In the meantime, he says, West Indies cricket continues to slide into irrelevance, as is evident from the new Future Tours Programme in which many of West Indies' home games are scheduled after their traditional season.
And that really puts cricket into its proper perspective. Many of us feel passionately about it from a purely sporting context while others will see its value as a metaphor or a barometer of contemporary West Indian society. Still, after all of that, it's only a game. In the Arab world, like almost everywhere else, football is followed with an almost religious fervour. But the people of that region have taken to the streets for the past five months and have died by the hundreds, maybe thousands already, not over some perceived injustice on the football pitch, but for freedoms that we take for granted.
Dustin Silgardo is a former sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo