Good to be so bad

This is one time when our widespread mediocrity is a blessing.

You could imagine the sort of mess we would be in at the start of the home series against Australia if West Indian cricketers were really in demand? Well, thanks to a period of steep decline that shows no sign of levelling off anytime soon, only Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan have been signed up for the money-spinning Indian Premier League that gets underway just three days after the last one-day international of Sri Lanka's visit.

It's interesting to note that while, as expected, the IPL has snapped up all the top Australians with the exception of Michael Clarke and Mitchell Johnson (who declined the offer of going on the auction block because of concerns related to the demands of too much cricket in an already packed schedule), the players and their employers, Cricket Australia, seem at the moment to be prepared to operate on the premise that national duty comes first, never mind the staggering financial inducements of the IPL which it is understood will earn the Aussies more than three times their annual salary for just six weeks' work incorporating a maximum of 15 Twenty20 matches.

Contrast that with the position of West Indies Cricket Board CEO Donald Peters, who was quoted over the weekend as saying that the regional administration will not deny the trio the No Objection Certificates required to facilitate their participation in the IPL. Peters, who is now in Dubai with WICB president Julian Hunte to attend an ICC meeting at which they are expected to raise issues threatening the viability of the game in the Caribbean, explained that it made no sense to adopt a confrontational position with the players as he expected them to head for India with or without the WICB's blessing.

So unless the chief executive is privy to information that has not yet been made available to the general public, his assertion that the three-Test series should still be an interesting contest because the Australians will also be fielding an under-strength squad for the first two Tests in Jamaica and Antigua seems to be some way off target.

Simple common sense dictates that Australia's administrators and players achieve mutual agreement on the priorities between wearing the baggy green and wearing whatever it is they will be wearing for their various IPL franchises. As much as their prolonged dominance of the game at all levels is a testament to strength in depth, there can be no way that a situation where only Clarke and Johnson of the current crop of first-choice players are representing Australia in the first two matches of the three-Test series will be considered acceptable Down Under.

In other words, we should brace for a full-strength Aussie side - Ricky Ponting, Brett Lee et al-taking on a home side that will be without Gayle (Kolkata), Chanderpaul (Bangalore) and Sarwan (Mohali) for the Tests at Sabina Park and the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, especially if their teams make it to the semi-finals of the inaugural tournament.

For those who may have missed it, the first season of the IPL runs from April 18 - three days after the last ODI of Sri Lanka's visit - to the final on June 1. The first Test against the Aussies begins May 22, with the second of the three Tests set to get underway on May 30. The round-robin phase of the IPL wraps up on May 27 with the semi-finals scheduled for May 30 and 31, so there is still the chance that the trio could be back for the second Test if their franchises fail to finish in the top four.

There is, however, no chance that Pedro Collins will be involved in any part of the upcoming international season.

Collins, the 31-year-old left-arm seamer, appears to have drawn the curtain on his West Indian representative career in turning down the invitation to be part of the squad for the first Test against Sri Lanka, beginning on Saturday in Guyana, due to his contractual commitments with Surrey.

	Simple common sense dictates that Australia's administrators and players achieve mutual agreement on the priorities between wearing the baggy green and wearing whatever it is they will be wearing for their various IPL franchises. As much as their prolonged dominance of the game at all levels is a testament to strength in depth, there can be no way that a situation where only Clarke and Johnson of the current crop of first-choice players are representing Australia in the first two matches of the three-Test series will be considered acceptable Down Under

Having not played a Test since the final match of the home series against India in Kingston in 2006, Collins is probably being pragmatic in putting a lucrative two-year county deal ahead of the unpredictability of what has been a spasmodic international career.

Another Barbadian fast bowler, 26-year-old Tino Best, had already effectively said farewell to ever again wearing West Indian colours by signing for the Indian Cricket League, joining Trinidadians Brian Lara and Mervyn Dillon in the Twenty20 tournament that had its premier event last November but suffers by comparison to the IPL because it is not sanctioned by the Indian authorities or the ICC, and has therefore struggled to attract the contemporary big names in the game, who would like to have their biryani and eat it too.

What all of this suggests is that the WICB faces challenges from all directions to keep West Indies cricket viable in an increasingly competitive market-oriented environment. More than just the indifference of the ICC to the plight of the Caribbean game, there is now the worrying prospect of the available talent putting considerably greater financial rewards ahead of what was once the pride and honour of wearing the burgundy cap.

Clearly from the WICB's perspective, pride and honour don't count for much anyway, which is why it's probably so good that we're so bad, and can therefore still put out a fairly decent XI.