Pink balls not the solution

The West Indies Cricket Board's decision to introduce pink balls and floodlights in next season's four-day competition may succeed in drawing more fans, but it may not help produce world-class cricketers, which is what the game desperately needs, writes Tony Becca in the Jamaica Gleaner.

A few weeks ago in Bridgetown, Barbados, at the headquarters of West Indies cricket, at a press conference to launch the sale of tickets for next year's World Twenty20 tournament in the West Indies - and while Dr Hilaire and Robert Bryan of the World Twenty20 organising committee were speaking eloquently about steel bands, horns, and pot covers, about rum and local cuisine, about dancing and singing, and about producing a "party" to remember - a few stalwarts of West Indies cricket, great players like Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Garfield Sobers, Gordon Greenidge, and Joel Garner, asked one question. They asked the gentlemen representing the West Indies Cricket Board what the board was doing to prepare the West Indies team so that, unlike the 2007 World Cup, the West Indies could make a strong bid for the title.

Dr Hilaire and Bryan could not answer the question.