West Indies cricket's annus horribilis

Begging Her Majesty's pardon for applying her poignant, well known phrase to the game of cricket; it is just that it seems particularly appropriate in this instance. In 1992, Queen Elizabeth II declared that it was "not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure".

"In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an 'annus horribilis,'" the British Monarch commented after her particularly horrible year. West Indies cricket won't look back on 2014 "with undiluted pleasure" either.

It began with the dismissals, in the space of three months, of Test captain Darren Sammy and head coach Ottis Gibson. Sammy had pleaded, after crushing Test defeats in India and New Zealand, that "we definitely cannot continue like this"; he gave way to Denesh Ramdin and immediately quit Test cricket. Gibson, fired on the phone by the West Indies Cricket Board president Dave Cameron the day before the start of a home series against Bangladesh, is yet to be replaced.

Clive Lloyd, an iconic figure, was appointed head of a rejigged selection panel. He followed a deliberate "West Indies first" policy, prioritising commitment to the regional team over domestic T20 franchise tournaments elsewhere, which saw spinner Sunil Narine being eliminated from the home series against New Zealand when he missed the cut-off date for joining the team camp by choosing to remain for the final of the IPL.

The problems were later compounded by Narine's suspension after two international umpires deemed his action suspect during the Champions League in India, and by Darren Bravo's "personal problems" that led him to pull out of the South African tour in December, the batsman's second such withdrawal for the year.

In spite of a close, enthralling, albeit unsuccesful, series against New Zealand and utter dominance over Bangladesh, including victory in West Indies' 500th Test, attendances rarely went past four figures.

So it was with the new, highly trumpeted Professional Cricket League (PCL), described by Cameron as "a revolutionary introduction into the West Indian cricketing landscape… that will transform West Indies first-class, List A and international cricket".

The once passionate public had all but lost hope after years of depressing decline; complete absence of publicity and promotion suggested the WICB had given up as well.

As disheartening as all such troubles were, they were suddenly reduced to irrelevance by the most severe crisis to confront West Indies cricket in its long and chequered history. It was triggered by the premature and calamitous exit of the team from its scheduled tour of India in October after a conflict between the WICB and the players over new contracts, presented to them on arrival in India.

With another ODI, one T20 and three Tests left abandoned, an incensed BCCI held the WICB responsible and served it with a claim for U$42.9m in compensation for losses incurred.

Entering 2015, it hangs ominously over a virtually bankrupt WICB.

Seeking reasons for the fiasco, the WICB commissioned an independent task force to investigate and report, which concluded that the parties involved - the board itself, the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) and the players - were equally culpable. The WICB's dithering over how to respond required political intervention to broker a provisional peace treaty. It was a familiar pattern.

At a meeting in Port-of-Spain, arranged by prime minister Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines, it was accepted there would be no "victimisation or discrimination" of the 14 who quit India. Cameron was among those who attended. True to the accord, seven from India, among them Ramdin, the captain, were picked for the three Tests in South Africa a couple of weeks later.

The flames of controversy were fanned once more by the exclusion of Dwayne Bravo, captain and chief spokesman for the players in India, Kieron Pollard and Darren Sammy (later belatedly included) from the subsequent ODI matches. Jason Holder, 23, was appointed as Bravo's successor, the youngest of all West Indies captains; it was a daunting assignment, with the World Cup to follow South Africa.

An angry Gonsalves predictably saw it as a betrayal. In a letter to Cameron, he called it "a travesty of justice… that reeks of village vengeance, discrimination and victimisation".

The issue yet again pitted a prominent leader of a member state of Caricom, the regional inter-governmental grouping, and by extension, Caricom itself, against the head of the organisation in charge of the only sport that has encompassed the entire English-speaking Caribbean for more than 114 years. With such a divide, and with the BCCI closely monitoring events from afar, it is a delicate situation that needs to be handled with care, understanding and conciliation. The signs are not encouraging.

Gonsalves has made his position clear. "The days of men riding horses with cork hats across plantations, are, metaphorically, over," he seethed in his letter to Cameron. These are emotive words in a region with a history of slavery. "The WICB must stop functioning as a virtual private club and be responsible and responsive to the people of the region," Gonsalves added. It is unclear, though, how this can be brought about.

At the height of the turmoil in India, Cameron, in the post for less than a year, defiantly tweeted: "They've criticised you. They've doubted you. They've lied on you. They've done all they can do, but one thing they can't do is stop you".

Charles Wilkin, a Queen's Counsel from St Kitts who headed the WICB's governance committee until the directors rejected his commissioned report on its restructuring, echoes recommendations that CARICOM governments "use their leverage to force the board to become relevant".

"If not, the time is not long when the other cricket countries will relieve West Indies cricket from its misery and force it into permanent second-class status," he contends. "That would certainly kill cricket as a regional institution." It is an opinion gaining increasingly wider currency.

For all the upheavals off it, results on the field remained much as they were. West Indies' narrow, disappointing 2-1 loss to New Zealand, one above them in the ICC Test rankings, and the clean sweep over Bangladesh, one below them on the list, were contests against like teams. The gap between them and South Africa, the present kings of Test cricket, was evident in their overwhelming first Test defeat, by an innings and 220 runs.

In each case, West Indies continued to pay dearly for missed chances and and feeble late-order batting. Three South Africans escaped on their way to hundreds in the first two Tests. In the first three innings in South Africa, the counts were the last six for 39, seven for 44 and seven for 44 again.

What encouragement there was came from the returns of their young brigade. Kraigg Brathwaite, 22, accumulated significant scores against each opponent with the impressive solidity and concentration of the conventional opening batsman - 129 against New Zealand, 212 against Bangladesh and 106 against South Africa. His 77.88 average from his six Tests for the year was only below those of Joe Root, Angelo Mathews and Steve Smith, other players of the future.

At the start of his Test career, Holder shows the makings of the allrounder West Indies have missed for so long. Half-centuries against New Zealand, Bangladesh and South Africa by Jermaine Blackwood, 23, indicated an emerging middle-order batsman. Five years on from his Test debut, Shannon Gabriel, a strapping 26-year-old, started to add control to his 140kph pace.

What they, like West Indies cricket itself, needs is the support of a properly administered board for their careers to flourish.