Wacky April in West Indies cricket

April has been just another wacky month in the wacky world of West Indies cricket.

Filled with typical incongruities and oddities, it has ended with puzzling twists that, at least according to those who now preside over its destiny, have overnight turned doubt and despair into new hope and optimism.

The sudden official confidence in the resurgence of a team that has nosedived from top of the world to within an inch of rock bottom in a decade, is based principally on the return to the captaincy of Brian Lara for the third time, and the eventual signed accord between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) on several of the issues they allowed to undermine the game they are supposed to promote.

The supposed new dawn broke this weekend with the first of seven one-day internationals against Zimbabwe. Its high noon is a year down the line, with the first World Cup to be staged in the West Indies. Zimbabwe's cricket is in even more of a mess than ours. It has created such a decimated team of wide-eyed juveniles that Lara should be able to successfully launch his third and final attempt at moulding a strong team and leaving a legacy to match his phenomenal, long established batting reputation.

The first genuine test only comes once India, one of the best led, best balanced and strongest of opponents, arrive in two weeks for five ODIs and four Tests. If Lara's elevation generally came as a surprise - even, judging by his own comments, to himself - it was signalled months ago when Ken Gordon, the WICB president, appointed him as the only current player on his 'Win World Cup' committee, even above then captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

Gordon described Lara last week as the logical choice as new captain, based on his "unquestioned" experience and knowledge. But much the same was said by earlier presidents when Lara was first installed, in place of Courtney Walsh in 1998, and again when Wes Hall persuaded him to take over from Carl Hooper in 2003. Expectations were similarly high on each occasion but came to nothing.

Lara first resigned in 2000 after "two years of modest success and devastating failure" to take a break from the game. Last year he withdrew from the team in solidarity with players dropped because of the sponsorship row with the board rather than fight their cause in the prime position as captain. Why Gordon and the former players who have now implored him to take the helm once more are persuaded it can be different this time is not clear. Every West Indian, desperate for an end to years of defeat and distress, will pray for the promised revival under Lara and wish him well. Perhaps it will be third time lucky and, for all the glory his batting has brought to West Indies cricket during its most dismal times, he deserves a more fitting finale than he has had in his previous stints at the helm (ten wins against 23 losses in 40 Tests, 37-42 in 82 ODIs).

Yet such a record, along with his frequent statements over the past year that, in his 37th year, captaincy was no longer a consideration and he aimed to cut down on ODI appearances so as to prolong his Test career, do not correspond with the claim that he was the only logical choice. Quite the opposite. It is clear that this is a short-term measure designed to provide a bridge to the World Cup. It takes no account of the long-term future that required a new, younger captain, especially as his immediate opposition would be Zimbabwe.

The most disturbing aspect of the whole business was Gordon's dismissal of the alternatives as not ready for the role, even to the extent that no one was named as vice-captain. That, we were officially and bafflingly informed during the first ODI yesterday, would be decided by Lara "should the need arise during the match". Ramnaresh Sarwan, aged 25, six years an international cricketer and twice vice-captain, must be even more confused than when Guyana preferred Chanderpaul to him as their skipper immediately after he was first chosen West Indies' deputy. Chris Gayle, Daren Ganga and Wavell Hinds, all experienced cricketers, and others with ambitions to lead the West Indies one day must also be nonplussed by Gordon's blanket rebuttal. But that is the way of West Indies cricket, typified by several other recent events.

April started with the resignations within days of each other of two of its most prominent leaders, Chanderpaul as captain and Roger Brathwaite as the board's chief executive officer. Two men thrust into their positions by default, they joined a host of others who had found the challenge beyond them. Soon, the longest serving member of the board, Chetram Singh, never one to be out of the limelight for long, was openly and consciously slating his president on some specious grounds, following up by hailing Chanderpaul, whose captaincy he had championed, for making the right decision to quit.

In the meantime, Clive Lloyd, the eminent former captain rejected after he was nominated as vice-president at the board's directors meeting last year, was named head of a reformed cricket committee. As was immediately evident, it is a post that carries far greater authority. The first problem requiring the attention of Lloyd and his colleagues, all members of the teams he led during the glory days, was the prolonged and tiresome impasse between the WICB and WIPA over retainer contracts. They had all passed this way before, on the opposite side as players. Now they declared in a public statement that they were "at a loss to understand the reasons for this matter being dragged out as long as it has". It was a sentiment widely shared by those who still cared about West Indies cricket.

Lloyd's committee described what had been put forward as "a good offer, fully competitive with other full member countries of the world" and, as only ten days remained before the start of the series against Zimbabwe, recommended a cut-off date for the players to sign so that a new captain and team could be named.

There was one drawback. The board was still drafting its contracts so the deadline had to be shifted. It was not until 3 a.m. last Wednesday that the deal was finally done: 23 years after the retainer scheme was first mooted by then WICB president Allan Rae to Lloyd's team, specifically to combat the exodus of players to apartheid South Africa. As those who have managed to maintain their interest in West Indies cricket through all the nonsense of recent times, waited to know if there would be anything to watch in the coming weeks, there were other bewildering developments.

One of the WICB's representatives in the contracts negotiations was Desmond Haynes, the former West Indies opener who, only eight months earlier, was secretary of WIPA. Now one of Barbados' directors on the board against which he once had a protracted court action, he has found a fellow director to be the new president of the Leeward Islands Cricket Association Gregory Shillingford, who was fired as the WICB's chief executive officer three years ago.

And if these contradictions were not perplexing enough, there were the full page, colour advertisements in Thursday's newspapers in Trinidad and Tobago. Each featured a prominent image of Brian Lara. One proclaimed: "Born Leader - Raise Your Hand!, the other Lara In The Lead!" One was for Digicel, sponsors of the team that Lara captains once more, the other for TSTT, the Trinidad and Tobago off-shoot of Cable & Wireless, Digicel's fierce rivals with whom Lara has a personal contract.

Only in West Indies cricket.