No end to cheap tricks in West Indies cricket

Given the record at the Queen's Park Oval, Joey Carew's pronouncement that there will "most definitely" be an outright result in the decisive fifth Test starting today was simply stating the obvious.

Against the shocking atrocities in Lahore last week that have shaken the game to its core, a little local controversy in a regional match would seem to be of negligible consequence. It is, in fact, very pertinent to the present state of West Indies cricket.

It involved the closing stages of the match between Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados at Guaracara Park last week Monday. With the home team going helter-skelter after a victory target of 142, Barbados sent down seven overs in an hour to an unsurprising backdrop of abuse from the few hundred home spectators.

When, finally, umpires Bashir Ali and Vincent Weekes determined that the light had deteriorated enough to end the match, T&T were 99 for 3 off the 12 overs they received in an hour and 40 minutes, and their officials and supporters were fuming.

It was, charged Forbes Persad, chief executive of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board (TCCB), "a deliberate act of time wasting to deprive Trinidad and Tobago" of victory. In a letter published in the press, one Noel Kalicharan was beside himself with rage. He cited Lord Kitchener's "Tek yuh meat out mih rice" calypso to describe the "low down, cheap and rotten tricks a Bajan would resort to in order to outsmart a Trini".

He even managed to draw a connection between the Lahore deaths and the Guaracara go-slow. "It is one thing for terrorists to assault cricket's reputation but those who undermine the reputation from within are no less guilty than those with guns and grenades and must suffer appropriate penalties," he added.

It seemed a touch extreme. Persaud put it more calmly. He hoped the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) would "take a strong position" on the matter. All the evidence indicates he was wasting his breath. The Guaracara furore is the latest in a sequence about which nothing has been done by the WICB, the organisation specifically charged with protecting the reputation of West Indies cricket and guarding against indiscipline.

Perhaps all were not what they seemed. So it might be in this case. Livy Coppin, the Barbados manager, cited a few extenuating circumstances when I sought his take on the matter - although it is difficult to imagine what circumstances could lead to seven overs in an hour.

This, like all the others before it, requires an official investigation by the WICB and, if necessary, the "strong position" Persad is after. Once nothing is done, as it hasn't been time and again, our cricket, at all levels, will continue to be dragged down by such cynicism.

Ironically, Barbados were on the receiving end of the same slothful over rate in their 2003 Carib Beer Cup match against Guyana at Albion. As they went after 72 more for victory off 24 overs with seven wickets standing following a rain break, the Guyanese meandered through 11 overs in an hour and a quarter in an obvious and, as it turned out, successful effort to thwart Barbados.

Courtney Browne, then Barbados captain, now paradoxically chairman of their selectors, charged that "the sort of cricket the Guyanese displayed was horrendous". Nine overs an hour, he said, was "total madness".

Horrendous or not, madness or not, there the matter rested without a peep from the WICB, a tacit endorsement of such tactics. Two years earlier, Dinanath Ramnarine and Merv Dillon, the West Indies eighth-wicket pair, engaged in methods to ensure a draw against South Africa in the Kensington Oval Test I described at the time as "demeaning". A stronger adjective would have been in order.

Ramnarine claimed a strained muscle and removed his pads to receive on-field attention. Dillon called for a change of boots. Critical time and overs were consumed. Umpires Steve Bucknor and Daryl Hair did little to stop the nonsense-just as Ali and Weekes reportedly did little at Guaracara.

Ramnarine and Dillon are both Trinidadians, prompting Alloy Lequay, then president of the Trinidad and Tobago Board, to state: "If this took place while they were wearing national colours, I would have ensured that an inquiry be held to get all the facts and not just a public relations exercise". Lequay was also a WICB director. Of course, no inquiry was held, no action taken.

Two years ago, in the final of the Carib Beer Challenge, the showpiece of the regional season, the same combination as Monday-Guarcara, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados-witnessed some of the most petulant behaviour by players in any match in the Caribbean.

"Here are the two best teams in the region, role models for our cricket in the future," Deryck Murray, the TTCB head, WICB director and former West Indies vice-captain, noted. "We need, in the WICB and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) to address the issue and ensure that it doesn't happen again."

Of course, the issue was never addressed and, once players know that they won't be censured for indiscipline or bringing the game into disrepute, it will happen, time and again. And that is one reason for the present state of West Indies cricket.