Two great escapes

For a time last week, it seemed as if the two most influential individuals in West Indies cricket had come to the end of the line.

Pat Rousseau and Brian Lara, in their differing but intricately connected ways, have been at the heart of 'the moderate success and devastating failure' - to use Lara's own words - that had 'engulfed' our game.

Now, for contrasting reasons, their futures were in jeopardy. More than once in the past, both had wriggled out of tight situations. They would do so again.

As president for the past four years, Rousseau, the blunt Jamaican attorney, had presided over a board increasingly divided against itself and an administration guilty of a succession of well-publicised blunders.

He had been forced into an embarrassing climb down after sacking Lara as captain and Carl Hooper as vice-captain during the unprecedented players' strike prior to the tour of South Africa.

And he had so alienated a growing number of eminent former players, notably former captains Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards, that the game was in danger of losing their essential expertise and experience.

In such a situation, Rousseau had every reason to resign, as Lara had done as captain in February.

Instead, he pointed the finger of blame at the member boards and his paid help, censured manager, captain and coach for the team's failures and ascribed his fall-out with the players to a 'misunderstanding'.

He resolutely held on and, for the first time, readied himself for a challenge for the board presidency. Those closely observing the unbecoming political intrigue that now accompanies any cricketing election anticipated a close contest.

Alloy Lequay, the long-serving president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board who sought to replace Rousseau, even spoke confidently of victory.

It was typical of a retired, if not failed, politician whose credentials were significantly boosted by having as his vice-presidential running mate, a renowned cricketer, Wes Hall, in an organisation that increasingly has little place for cricketers.

As it turned out, it was not close at all. Nor did it faithfully reflect the feelings of the member boards.

Rousseau and his vice-president, Clarvis Joseph, a businessman from Antigua, won 9-5 according to one report, 7-5 with two abstentions according to another.

It meant that, in at least one instance, the two representatives of the six affiliated boards voted differently, according to personal preference, not a given mandate.

According to some members of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA), who made their objections known when the West Indies cricket board (WICB) constitution was changed, no election is any longer fair since the president and vice-president, who represent only themselves, each has a vote.

It is impossible to know what influenced the voting.

Rousseau had clearly fallen short of the targets he had enunciated for himself and his self-styled 'new dispensation' when he took office, unopposed, in 1996.

'Our aim should be to unify the board, the territories and the players behind the common objective of producing the best cricket team in the world and resuming the position of being unchallenged as the No. 1 team in the world both in Tests and One-Day cricket,' he told his inaugural media conference.

In four years, he has got no closer to achieving that aim. If anything, it has become more distant.

'I'm going to take the question of accountability very seriously,' he also said.

Such heads-will-roll talk has turned out to be all bluster. Only Lara has publicly taken responsibility for the failure of the team he leads and quit.

Chetram Singh, the president of the Guyana board, claimed prior to the meeting that there was 'a lot of dissatisfaction with the authoritarian way in which the West Indies board is being managed'.

'There is a lot of dictatorship at the top, a lack of consultation,' he added, pointing out that it was 'not a one-country situation'.

It was a clear reference to what has been widely, if not necessarily fairly, perceived as the Jamaicanisation of West Indies cricket.

Rousseau has placed great store on the role of marketing in an era in which sport has become highly commercialised.

The US$40 million deal for exclusive television rights from 2004-2008, signed with BSkyB a week prior to the annual general meeting, would have been a shrewdly timed boost to his manifesto.

The excitement over the 2007 World Cup and where key matches would be staged may also have been a seductive bargaining chip.

Nor was Lequay an attractive candidate.

By words and deeds, he and his Trinidad and Tobago board had revealed an unmistakeable insularity, especially in its blinkered defence of Lara, right or wrong. And 73 is hardly the age to set out on a new course.

Just as 31 is not the age to end an outstanding, if turbulent, career, as Lara appeared set to do before his abrupt somersault Wednesday.

As Dean Harold Crichlow commented recently, genius needs to be recognised and treated with understanding. In a team of brittle and inexperienced batting, it is a sentiment easily observed.

But when does it stop' With Lara, it seems like whenever he chooses.