Sticky dogs and media men (13 February 1999)

13 February 1999

Sticky dogs and media men

Earl Best

Every so often I feel I should share an interesting letter that crosses my desk with Express readers. If I direct it to the person responsible for the Letters page and it gets rejected, I try to make the room for it here in sport.

The letters were legion for the second half of the South African tour but they were angry rather than informative. The start of the domestic cricket season has turned up something of real interest, written by two cricketers who call themselves Zaggy & Ziggy.

Their subject is unfair uncricketing practices that are becoming more and more pervasive as prize money increases. Here's their letter:

This is a plea to the relevant authorities, in other words, the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board, to take the necessary action-drastic and swift penalties-against those guilty of the practice of doctoring their cricket pitches. The TTCBC must immediately put an end to the most sickening habit of allowing these deliberate attempts at cheating to pass as accidents or mishaps.

We are also calling on the Umpires Association to also get involved-or develop some cojones-and report fairly on the practice as well as, where necessary, re-schedule play.

The rules require that National League teams provide proper covers for their wickets during home games. However, often when the home team bats first and fails to post a really challenging total, the wicket is either underprepared or wet on the other days when they are not expecting to take the crease. But what is the Board doing about this? Nothing!

In one game last weekend, for example, the home side batted in brilliant sunshine on the first day on Saturday and were all out for less than 200. having started their reply that same afternoon, the visitors arrived on the following day on Sunday to find the entire playing field and the adjoining pitch, which were uncovered, dry. Not surprising since no rain had fallen the night or on the morning of the game. So it was bewildering to discover wet areas strategically located just in front of the batting crease on both ends of the wicket.

In that game, a staggering 22 wickets fell for 115 runs on the second day even though play started half an hour late because of the wet conditions.

In another game, a total of 609 runs were scored while only 14 wickets fell over the two days.

There were some six young players eligible for selection on the National Under-19 team this year participating in the rain-affected game. So the question arises: how can a young player be expected to develop properly in the prevailing conditions? How can cricket in Trinidad and Tobago develop if such situations recur and the guilty parties go punished?"

We were quick to point fingers during the recently concluded tour of South Africa where the WI batsmen could not cope with pitch conditions. But perhaps we need to look closer home to find the real source of the problem.

Perhaps the mediamen who seem to take such pleasure in criticising our batsmen whenever they fail should get out of the ivory towers where they sit in judgment over the players and visit some of the local venues where cricket is played and report on the ill practices that impede the development of our youth.

We certainly can do worse.

Point taken. But the two things go hand in hand and the media must also discharge their responsibility to offer constructive criticism of the performance of the Test team.

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)