CONTROVERSY AND CHAOS
continue to cloud Caribbean cricket with a comedy of errors and excuses. But how many times have you heard the cliché, "stop making sport with sports"?
The latest indiscretions by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), with the misspelling of Jerome Taylor's name, the cancellation of a tour match in Tobago and the Duckworth-Lewis computer programme glitch delaying a match
in progress, are all laughable incidents.
Cricket fans continue to be
short-changed. It is a crying shame that Sri Lanka's tour is lasting no longer than a snowcone in the desert.
What is the cricketing logic in having Sri Lanka journey all the way from Asia to the Caribbean for a two-match Test series and just three One-Day Internationals (ODI)? The time has come for the International Cricket Council (ICC) to make it mandatory for a minimum of three Tests in each series.
I would also suggest that in future, where there are just three ODIs instead of five, the schedule should be complemented by two Twenty20 matches.
Just imagine Sri Lanka won the first Test in Guyana, the West Indies rebounded to win the next in Trinidad and the series is over, without a deciding third Test. Certainly, had there been another Test with the rubber tied 1-1, crowd attendance may have improved. It would've also given one of the Windward islands of St Lucia, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines or even St Kitts, an opportunity to host a Test, instead of being restricted to ODIs.
At the Under-19 level, less than three months before the July start of ther regional tournament, there is still no certainty where it will be held as the proposed host country, Barbados, is still waiting on WICB budge approval.
Even the last Under-19 trial match, at the tiny YMPC ground in Beckles Road where the boundaries are threes and fours instead of the traditional sixes, started without official umpires, leaving coaches and groundsman to take a turn at umpiring.
Another big joke was having 19 players on each side, resulting in some boys not getting a chance to bat in either innings and specialist batsmen going in at No. 8, 9 and 10 and ten bowlers bowling in an innings.
Why wasn't Kensington Oval, used or one of the bigger grounds, which are likely to host matches if Barbados decides to honour its commitment, instead of giving batsmen a sense of false security when a gentle push or mis-hit goes to the boundary?
Had a single BCA board member been present for at least one day, that official would have appreciated this is not the way to treat young cricketers vying to represent their country.