COZIER ON CRICKET: Board's turn to be examined (Column)

When the West Indies returned home from their disastrous tour of South Africa last February, captain, manager and coach were sternly summoned by the West Indies Cricket Board to several meetings with various committees and then with the full board itself.

They, along with trainer Dennis Waight, were all asked to submit written reports on what had gone on in South Africa and were put through the third degree at the subsequent meetings.

The upshot was board president Pat Rousseauu's public condemnation of weakness in leadership that contributed to poor performances, the two-match probation placed on captain Brian Lara and the appointment of Dr. Rudi Webster as performance consultant.

It was a predictable and necessary exercise and the rest, as they say, is history.

Now that the team is returning from its latest troubled mission, with a slate of heavy defeats and below par individual and team performances, it is time for another inquisition, only this time the roles should be switched.

It is now the board that needs to be in the dock and seriously cross-examined.

It needs to explain how it could undertake such a hectic itinerary of one-day series, identified by its chairman of selectors, Mike Findlay, as being used to expose and groom young cricketers, without the slighest preparation and with a support staff reduced by more than half from what it had been for the World Cup.

It has to clarify why there wasn't at least a preliminary week-long get-together for practice and training for players who had little or no serious cricket in the three-month hiatus after the World Cup and included so many unfamiliar with the demands of cricketing globe-trotting .

The players, if not the public, should be told why there was no replacement for the recuperating coach Malcolm Marshall, and why, in addition, Dr. Webster, the fielding coach, Julian Fountain, and the qualified physiotherapist, Jacqui King, were not re-engaged.

The team, and the two men involved, have cause to be justifiably peeved that Clive Lloyd had to undertake the dual role of manager/coach with the sole assistance of trainer Dennis Waight for a global adventure that eventually involved 16 one-day internationals in four geographically scattered cities.

The president might also want to say whether his stern pronouncement last year on the matter of players' fitness has gone the way of so many of his utterances and vanished into thin air.

Instructive

If you get selected and we send you to the person who does the (fitness) testing and you fail you'll be put out of the team and a replacement will be found, he said then. The clear and most recent evidence is that this has not happened.

It would be instructive to hear whether money, and money alone, was behind the agreement to play as many as six matches in nine days in Toronto, starting a mere three days after a flight halfway across the world from Singapore.

The board should feel obliged to say how, from first tournament in Singapore to last in Sharjah, the players were never equipped with the uniforms for practice, match play and casual wear that have long since become standard for even the most destitute and amateur of national sporting organisations.

As the lone West Indian media representative in Singapore and Bangladesh and one of the few in Toronto, I can attest to the embarrassment caused by the contrast between our incomplete resources and those of our opponents.

I did not see it, and was happy I didn't, but those unlucky enough to follow events in Sharjah live were suitably shocked to find West Indies players on the field in one match, in full view of international television coverage, in different outfits.

Had it been a Division 2 match in the Barbados Hockey Federation, I can testify, the West Indies team would not have been allowed to start the game.

There will be some excuse for it but I can't think of one that would suffice. It was a disgrace.

Such mind-boggling unprofessionalism at the top inevitably permeates through the entire system.

The instances are infinite. The confusion and internal bickering over the captaincy, the commercial hijacking of the Red Stripe Bowl to Jamaica, the blunder over the ages for the under-19 World Cup and the abandonment of last year's Sabina Park Test are among the most prominent.

So was the board's humiliating handling of its impasse with the players a year ago prior to the South African tour that was a prelude to the slackness that ensued. And so it has been these past six weeks as players had every reason to feel that their board couldn't care less about their well-being so long as the dollars kept rolling in.

As usual, we can expect the buck to be passed and for no one to be held accountable, least of all those who ought to be. And the same foolishness will continue to be perpetuated with the same inescapable results.