Rude Awakening For Cricket Board (11 November 1998)

11 November 1998

Rude Awakening For Cricket Board

by Tony Cozier

One of Pat Rousseau's first acts on assuming the presidency of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control in 1996 and bringing in the so-called "new dispensation" was to delete the word "control" from the title.

It was a symbolic gesture designed to erase its old image as an autocratic relic of a colonial past.

For several long and difficult hours on Sunday and Monday, in the unlikely setting of an overpriced hotel at London's Heathrow Airport, Rousseau desperately tried to effectively regain that lost authority.

The effort was destined to fail, no matter in what language the explanation for that eventual failure has now been couched.

Astounded by a preemptive strike over pay and conditions by players, under a newly reorganised West Indies Players' Association, that the board assumed were happily on their way for an historic tour of South Africa, indignant at the disregard of its instructions by the captain and vice-captain and stunned by the unity of the team that had not always been evident on the field, Rousseau and his colleagues came face to face with the reality of modern sporting life.

In a day and age in which international sports depends on the money provided by television networks and sponsors for its very survival, cricket more so than most, traditional cliches such as no man being greater than the game and no one, however great, being indispensible, have become ananchronisms.

These modern benefactors, in turn, rely heavily on the stars of the day to recoup their investment. It is a vicious circle in which the boards are trapped and over which they have little control, perhaps another reason for the change of name under the "new dispensation".

It is a situation that has undermined sport at all levels, from the Olympics to go-kart racing, and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) was virtually powerless to escape its effects.

The plain truth was clearly spelt out by Edward Grifiths, head of South African Television, who warned as the board and the players were holed up in their negotiating room: "We won't put up with anything less than a full strength team. We owe it to our sponsors, viewers and advertisers."

Revealing that he had obtained a sponsor for the West Indies team, the former South African wicket-keeper turned promoter, Dave Richardson, emphasised that it was conditional on Lara and Hooper being reinstated to their substantive positions.

The powerful political element in the particular equation, from no less a personage than President Nelson Mandela himself, in a letter hand-delivered by the head of South African cricket, Dr. Ali Bacher, to their Heathrow hotel, further confirmed the strength of the players' position.

While Bacher initially hailed his fellow board's action as "a clear message to world cricket that nobody is indispensible", self-interest remained an overriding factor, expressed in his sentiment that "we want to play the West Indies but we want to beat the best team".

It is a far cry from the time, 21 years ago, when the players, from every country, made a stance for better pay and conditions by joining Kerry Paker's World Series Cricket that was to have such an impact on the game.

Then television, then available in only a few countries, went for a pittance as did sponsorship and there were no protests when the West Indies sent a second-string team to India in 1978-79 and Australia to the West Indies in 1978.

From the start of this impasse, it was clear that there was too much to lose for some accommodation not to be reached to save the tour.

Day by day, hour by hour, as presidents and prime ministers put in their pleas, as lawyers and agents were predictably drawn to the impasse like a crowd to a horrific car crash and as the board acceded to the players' demand that their representatives come from the Caribbean to meet them, rather than vice-versa, the outcome became increasingly predictable.

From the start, Rousseau and his board had got it all wrong through what it has termed "a misunderstanding", a strange state of affairs still to be adequately explained. Either it was, finally and bravely, going to take a stand and stick by it or it was going to appease the players. It should have made up its mind from the very start and saved the heartache and embarrassment it has subsequently had to endure.

It first flexed its muscles by stripping Brian Lara of the captaincy it had finally, and controversially, bestowed on him in January and dropped from the chosen 16 and did the same to vice-captain Carl Hooper.

Its representatives, gathered for a special meeting on the matter in Antigua, unanimously agreed they had no option. Such penalties were long overdue on two indiviuals who had repeatedly flouted the board's regulations. Now they rebuffed its summons to attend the Antigua meeting, even though their airline tickets would be paid for.

For failing to head for South Africa as scheduled, they also fined those players who had stayed put in London where they had been joined by their captain and vice-captain who had participated in the Wills International Cup in Dhaka.

They were convinced they had right on their side and they enjoyed some influential support, even if the passionate public predictably clamoured for the whole of the best team and nothing but the best team.

In Trinidad and Tobago, Sports Minister Manohar Ramsaran proclaimed Lara's "disobedience" deserved punishment. It was tantamount to standing up in Havana's Revolution Square and demanding the overthrow of Fidel Castro.

The "new dispensation" must have felt stabbed in the back.

The same, now better organised West Indies Players' Association to which the board had donated US$150 000 over a three-year period as "part of its long-term action plan to strengthen and increase its relationships with the players" had suddenly turned against it.

And so had Lara whose elevation to the captaincy it had expected would end his trouble-making days in which he had been so often fined, warned or reprimanded.

Now, as the tour has been saved and the players have had all their demands met following the "misunderstanding", Rousseau says there are lessons to be learnt from the whole sorry episode and he hoped the board and the players learn them.

The one that is indisputable above all others is that the "new dispensation" was blessed with more foresight than it bargained for when it literally dispensed with its "control" two years ago.

Source :: The Barbados Nation (https://www.nationnews.com/)