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Barbados Cricket At Death's Door

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Kensington OvalA concerned BU family member posted the comment quoted below just moments ago (We could not have addressed the issue more eloquently Digi). Some members in the BU household have been fortunate to have benefited from the pleasure which the West Indies has given us all during the 80s and early 90s. It was a period which the West Indies totally dominated world cricket. Many have argued that the strength of West Indies cricket has revolved around the success of Barbados cricket. Whether we agree with this parochial position or not, there is no doubt that the pain which the commenter has expressed is symptomatic of how many West Indians at home and abroad continue to experience with each passing series.

What has gone wrong?

What can be done?

Maybe the big question if we were to put on our bean counting hat: is Barbados getting bang for buck given the current policy of how our resources are being allocated?

Should we accept that cricket is not a mass based sport which can provide a realistic opportunity for our youth?

We just spent over 130 million dollars to rebuild Kensington Oval and this number can climb given the potential for litigation. In case readers have forgotten the former government spent millions on the basis of a Memorandum of Understanding. An equitable arrangement remains to be found between the Barbados Cricket Association and the government. Here is what our commenter had to say:

BU this is off topic but its time for an article on Barbados cricket. This sport which once made us proud to be Bajans has descended to the point where we are the laughing stock of the Caribbean.

What has gone so drastically wrong in a sport where we produced countless legendary world beaters?

The talentless, spineless cricketers whose lack of simple common sense and pride while wearing the national cap are to blame. But even more-so the boasty, show off egomaniacs who comprise the Barbados Cricket Association bear the brunt of the blame. The BCA is a national embarrassment.

How can your national team perform when the administration is at permanent war with itself?The BCA knows more about litigation, affidavits and court cases than it does about cricket. Its legal fees on internal squabbles run into millions.They should rename the BCA the BCN or Barbados Cosa Nostra. This inept body spends more time, money and meetings on vendettas, double crossing and the politics of hate and spite than any New York Mafia family. What can be done to make our cricket rise again? That’s want I would like to hear from bloggers.

In the meanwhile the history and tradition of our cricket greatness is being dragged through the mud by a pack of wannabee middle class, publicity seeking administrators whose interest is strictly in themselves and the art one upmanship. The rudderless young cricketers who represent us have nowhere to turn for direction, guts or leadership as they continue to roll out the most depressing, cowardly displays witnessed by our once proud cricket nation.

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21 responses to “Barbados Cricket At Death's Door”

  1. Cricket Fan Avatar
    Cricket Fan

    Barbados cricket team was humiliated in Trinidad again today. All my years of watching cricket I have vever seen it so bad!

  2. Hard driver Avatar
    Hard driver

    When we become a people who will once more do things for love and not just for money, then cricket and the whole society in general will begin to achieve the past greatness we now look for.

  3. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    Read how Jimmy Adams says he became a competent- not great player ( full article at http://caribbeancricket.com/news/2008/03/31/2704

    Seems more of our current should do the same— or no longer do the same.

    Let’s first of all for the sake of this discussion accept that I stand here tonight as someone who eventually became a competent player at international level. And I would like to highlight a few issues that contributed to the achieving of that competence.

    a) My first experience of competitive preparation and competition came through a primary school competition in a parish that to this day maintains a strong history of U12 competition in its primary schools.

    b) As a 13yr old in 1981 I joined a cricket club in Jamaica that had representing them then two test players and about 8 or 9 past and present first class players. That environment certainly for the next 7 years was to have a huge influence on my development as a player.

    c) In 1983 Rohan Kanhai was brought to Jamaica by a group of corporates who had a passion for the game and were desperate to lift the standard of the game in the island. Kanhai took control, not just of the senior, but critically took over our junior teams during his stint in Jamaica, which was to span 15years, and was instrumental in successfully guiding a generation of us, myself included, to both first class and international levels.

    d) like many before me, I made a decision to go and play professionally overseas with the result of that decision being a gaining of maturity and experience beyond what I could have gained at home at the time.

    Now, if we take my family out of the equation, I have just outlined four distinct but informal processes that had a major influence on the development of one competent international player. That in essence was your typical player’s pathway to becoming a part of ‘the product’ (our international team) of that era. I am not attempting to glorify the process, but just want to establish that no part of it was planned, initiated or controlled by our Board.

    And please let us stop perpetuating the ignorance that our standards of previous eras were attained simply on the back of raw talent. In the case of every elite player of every generation to represent us, I guarantee you that if you look closely enough you will find processes, whether formal or informal, that were crucial to his development.

  4. Opin Avatar
    Opin

    Please hard driver… let’s be realistic. The mode is to do it for love of money… and that will work, once the money is there to go around.

    To really believe that someone should be driven by love is backward thinking.

  5. David Avatar
    David

    World cricket has now become big business.

    The other developed countries are showing the benefit of having deep pockets to build the put the structure in place to propell their sport forward. We are talking about the use of technology and management expertize to ensure good stewardship of available resources.

    In the Caribbean the lack of financial resources, the insularity among islands, the uneven development of technology and infrastructures among other factors all combine to challenge the the Caribbean team ever regaining supremacy in world cricket.

    It does appear like we are talking about cricket as if it were a business. Then again maybe it is but someone needs to tell our governemts who continue to pour millions into the game. The control of cricket in our region needs to be removed from the control of a few and replaced with a more broad based ownership structure.

    That’s a good place to start we think!

  6. Bush tea Avatar
    Bush tea

    Doing it for love is a great approach. It works because then, success may result from the commitment that comes from a real love of the game….. but the days of love are gone.

    Doing it for money can work just as well, however this brings into play a small matter called MANAGEMENT.

    The problem with doing it for money is that there is the ongoing and significant temptation to help out friends, work out deals, allow mediocrity to seep in, and end up with petty squabbles in the absence of good leadership and high quality management.

    The quality of management in this region is reflected in the standard of our cricket…. one word describes it – incompetence.

    …there will be no improvement in this -or any other sport, unless competent management is found and put in place.

    Our overall attitude that somehow seems to divorce top management from the poor results obtained is the biggest joke of all.

    Arthur (as he himself now admits) is FULLY responsible for the mess that we have developed over the past 14 years; Thompson for any mess currently being developed and the other ‘leaders’ in their respective areas accordingly.
    Until we start to hold leaders accountable and liable for their results, we are not likely to solve our problems with management- or with cricket.

  7. David Avatar
    David

    Bush tea we agree with your comment (unbeleivable!!!). An example of what we are talking about can be seen in Joel Garner who is President of the BCA. He was a great cricket, no doubt about it. However we are not sure what credentials recommends him to lean the BCA which manages a multi-million dollar budget. Our criticism is not of Garner per se but of the current structure which is clearly inefficient given how the BCA is currently managed.

  8. ROBOT Avatar
    ROBOT

    cricket is an old boring game , expensive and not suited to any time farless these modern times
    cricket came when people -had a lot of time to waste—-a test match of 6 days duration with a rest day to boot . some matches went on for 8 -9 days or until the game was finished

    cricket is a boring game, the youngters nowadays with their short attention spans and nothing to prove to anybody do not care about cricket

    long live king cricket !
    its not relevant anymore

  9. ROBOT Avatar
    ROBOT

    bush tea had to come to politics and blame owen arthur–you people seem to be obssessed with owen—–a top prime minister –show me a better barbadian prime-minister. owen arthur is the best prime minister barbados has produced after errol barrow. people said that barrow was better than owen and barrow did not win four terms in a row so owen should not win four,

    this is the only reason some people get up against owen -it was a matter plan just like the master plan to retard west indies cricket because we were at the top for so long. people felt that it was not good for cricket to have one team dominating for so long just as some people felt about owen–they wanted a change—–we have gotten change in west indies cricket—-but what kind ??

  10. Blogging Around Barbados: Pit Bull Chased By Chickens, Who Is This Fashion Model At Mullins Beach?, Penguins and The Death Of Bajan Cricket… « Barbados Free Press

    […] at Barbados Underground, David proclaims Barbados Cricket At Death’s Door and we couldn’t agree more. Frankly we think there is an excellent case to be made that […]

  11. jdid Avatar
    jdid

    There are many many reasons for the state of bajan cricket.

    We have talented players but the programs and infrastructure are not in place to develop a talented under 13 and under 15 team into a talented under 19 team into a talented first class team with potential test players. Back in the day we got away on pure talent. Thats not working today so we need to change our mind state. The especially glaring issue is developing under 19 players into first class players. Coming out of under 19 what do these players do? We basically put them out to pasture. Even if they arent ready to go onto first class level we should have some sort of mentoring program or something where they get to train with the first class veterans and see how things work at that level. And keep them interested. Very very important.

    Another problem is that some of the young cricketers basically reflect our young people and our society today in that they think they are god’s gift to the world ad dont realize how much hard work goes into success. Again we need to stamp out the lawlessness and get these guys disciplined.

    Then there is the selection problem. I say play players on merit not only raw potential. Both Bajan and West Indies cricket has this issue where guys get one 5 wicket haul or one century and all of a sudden we are catupulting them over the veterans onto the next level and they arent ready. Just cause it works with a few like a Roland Holder or a Shiv Chanderpaul or a Malcolm Marshall dont mean its going to work with all.

    related to that last paragraph we also have this tendency to discard our veterans prematurely. Example Floyd Reifer could have played for Bim this year but we discarded him or made it known that his time was done so now he’s playing for the Combined Campuses and doing quite well. Better than any batsman we have in our team not named Ryan Hinds.

    All that and as some of the above commentators said the whole organization of cricket in bim needs to just be changed. The BCA just not doing what they supposed to do.

  12. Thewhiterabbit Avatar
    Thewhiterabbit

    What ails cricket?

    1. Teamwork. Eleven men, each out to boost his own ego, advance his own standing in his own community, at the expense of the others (crabs in a barrel!) cannot be called a team. In the end cricket is a team sport not an individual sport.
    2. Number 1 above is aggravated because there is no political entity known as the West Indies, hence no political unity behind the organization.
    3. Racism. People such as certain egocentric UWI professors demand that cricket be a microcosmic model for the rise of one racial community at the expense of another. One even went so far as to suggest that it was the racial/political role played by cricket in the 1970’s that propelled the team to greatness, and that the loss of that mission resulted in the current demise of cricket. How is it that there is no cricketer on the West Indies team from a European ancestry? Even Zimbabwe and South Africa place people from this community on their cricket teams. If one sets out to exclude players on such grounds then players able to make significant contributions to the game will not be able to contribute.
    4. Funding. In today’s world cricket takes bucks. Too bad that a certain community has been excluded when that community seems able to financially support rally driving and polo, two sports that are rising fast to overtake cricket as favored national past-times.
    5. Publicity. Headline news at 7:00pm: News Flash, News Flash, West Indies snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (again)!!!! As if this were news?!?!? Constantly rewarding the Windies with favorable publicity for being defeated can only reinforce the defeat mentality and the defeat actions. If they lose, just don’t play it up with coverage of each 4 and 6, and each wicket taken. In cricket losing isn’t coming in second, it is losing, and doesn’t deserve more than a passing mention that they lost once again.
    6. Captaincy. Clive Lord carried the Windies to greatness. Clive Lord retired and cricket crashed. Perhaps there is an essential message there.

  13. cooligan Avatar
    cooligan

    i will agree that the BCA has become a large part of the problem in cricket by maintaining an archaic class based system that cannot serve cricket in todays world.

    the BCA has around 80 teams in its structure,
    13 in first division
    30 in the intermediate zones
    39 in the 2nd division zones

    The BCL has another 60 teams in its various divisions.
    140 teams for a small island and a sport whose popularity is on the decline. theresult is that most competitions are watered down and devoid of high levels of competition. Players who should struggle to make an intermediate squad play for an ENTIRE SEASON in the first division. Ezra Stuart has highlighted examples of players who average in the teens playing for a season without being dropped. this is madness. When this is coupled with a system that does not encourage performance by promotion and punish ineptitude with demotion the result is a general malaise on both players and administrators.
    When this is added to a board which is so intent on maintaining the status quo that it refuses to recognise the principles of FAIRNESS and JUSTICE and prefers to spend huge amounts on litigation and arbitration rather than ‘do the right thing’ Is it any wonder that things are the way they are?

    Finally most administrators in the west indies have tunnel vision. they don’t realise that cricket is one of the most poorly run sports in the world. In looking for models and examples of how to succesfully run sporting organisations they need look no further than successful organisations and teams in North America and the English FA and the ECB and Cricket Australia.

  14. cooligan Avatar
    cooligan

    In those organisations there is the concept of contraction which was done in baseball to eliminate franchises whose fan bases had diminished. Note that the ECB also contracted its top league. the premier league also considered and may have reduced its top flight teams , I am not certain about this one so i stand to be corrected.

    The idea is that less teams and opportunities makes it harder to get in and stay in so players, teams administrators and organisations try harder; compete more and this raises the level of play and attracts fans. this principle can be sen in NCAA basketball where ONLY 64 teams are allowed in and teams like the 2 time Defending champions Florida gators with a 21-8 record were left out.
    It can be seen in baseball where only 4 teams out of 16 or so for each league can make the playoffs so each year some excellent teams dont make it. the same thing goes for the NFL and the western conference of the NBA. now these leagues could easily expand to 5 or 6 more cities with their popularity but this would water down quality. Each year thousands of student athletes are eligible for these leagues; less than 300 are taken and if you dont perform you will soon be out of a job.
    County cricket in england has divided into a two tier system because of concerns about the quality of play; the result is increased competitiveness in both divisions. Barbados needs no more than 60 teams spread across the island at suitable venues with demotion and promotion not counting the school teams. this would ensur a certain level of competitiveness and that only the best played it would also ensure that organisations plan and administer excellent recruiting, development, practice and disciplinary systems to foster a climate of success and performance. please note that Ryan Hinds who we think of as a very good batsman has a first class average of 26 or 27. few batsmen even on covered wickets average thirty-five in first division even against less than excellent bowling but while cricket burns the BCA fiddles.

  15. David Avatar
    David

    We think Cooligan you are comparing a high performance league with those of amateur status in the Caribbean. The professional leagues are performance based in every sense with promotions and demotions occuring based on performance. The supporting point is the unlimited resources which those professional leagues in the US and UK spend to ensure peak performance e.g. training facilities, sports medicine and physchology etc. The reality is that Caribbean governments can no longer justify the large sums of monies being spent in relation to th number of young people beig able to be self supporting. In cricket you have to reach a high standard to play at the test and first class level to earn any kind of income. What happens to the thousands who don’t make it?

  16. bajanbat Avatar
    bajanbat

    WI cricket is definitely in serious trouble. In my opinion most of the blame lies with the team. Either they are just not good enough or they are not playing up to their true ability. All the excuses we give them about the WICB, the BCA and whoever else, they are the ones playing the game. If their hearts were in it they would perform, the management would be exposed and I do think things would get better.
    One of the problems is that we seem to believe that the only people who can manage crisket is someone who has played at Test level. Rubbish. Most of them have little or no management skills.
    Similarly we have a problem with a non WI person as coach. Why? Other countries have had non nationals as coach with great success. I think our problem is we see it as a racial issue, we don’t like a person with lighter skin than us telling us anything. Get out of the slave mentality, it is stifling us! Times have changed despite what some
    tell keep telling us!
    We have talent but we must stop praising mediocrity. Someone makes some runs and they suddenly become a star. Take Dwayne Snith, talented but that hundred on debut was the worst thing that he could do. He believed that he could bat – big mistake. Now he is a walking wicket. Who will help him? Does he want or believe he needs help?
    Tino: fast but useless, Fidel: fast but much too erratic; the list goes on.
    I think this attitude was fostered by BCL: who was brilliant but the totally worst personal example for the team one could imagine – driving his sponsored BMW to the game while the team travel in the coach – come on – is that how one leads a team?
    I will stop here. I will be accused of all sorts of things but believe me the WI can do much better once they accept that they are not the God given rulers of world cricket. Just another team trying their hardest. The Aussies are bullies but they back their words with total effort, sometimes they lose but they come back hard.
    It is time we tried this approach again.

  17. Jukecheckedeyskirt Avatar
    Jukecheckedeyskirt

    What is killing our Cricket
    ———————————————-
    The lack professionally adpative players, management, the infrastructure, tunnel vision, committment, lack of killing instinct, pride and the know all mentality. Add these together and you know what you get. CHAOS!!!!!

  18. cooligan Avatar
    cooligan

    yes David but the GOB already invests a large amount in cricket by way of grounds, coaches and funds so they need to ensure that these resources produce the desired framework.
    i am saying take ideas from their structure and the way they operate. for example:
    Contraction of teams to promote quality and competition
    Player equality and team cohesiveness
    Team demotion and promotion to enhance performance
    Stipulate and monitor development programmes
    Motivation and Stimulation of players
    General Player Management and Administration

    I give you some examples, BCL driving his sponsored BMW to the game while the team travel in the coach In the Professional leagues even the 35 million US a year guys take the team bus.
    BCL and Chris Gayle’s arrogance
    and general WI under performance
    We seem to have an issue managing problem players and coping with poor attitudes. is this any different to the problems several US organisations faced with their ghetto thug style under achieving players. I would hazard a guess that their situation is more intense since we dont have Barbados Players getting killed in drive bys and heavy drug use. But my point is surely we could learn from their attemps to manage personalities, attitudes, image and behaviour all in an attempt to enhance performance and breed success. we could even learn from the ones who failed miserably like the Cincinati Bengals and note that their style of giving star players free reign and privilidges which other players did not get (Akin to Brian Lara) backfired miserably and lead to a culture of mis behaviour, lack of team discipline and performance , underachievement, and unbelievable arrogance and egotism which was unsupported by performance. Sounds familiar I could be talking about the West Indies
    my point is we must learn from successful models . everything will not be applicable but surely we have enough brains to discern what is applicable and what is not

  19. David Avatar
    David

    We hear you cooligan but our original point stands: are we spending too much of our limited resources on cricket which is not a world sport and does not provide the career opportunies which basketball and football offer.

  20. cooligan Avatar
    cooligan

    I concede that that is a valid question. but if we assess things objectively we may realise that far mor bajans have made it to a being paid level of cricket than footballers. I must also make the point that the competition facedto make it to the top level of basketball and football is much harder for the individual than it is in cricket. As it is i think we spend too much money on both basketball and football because we simply cant compete with the Africans and south Americans for football and the Europeans, South Americans and the chinese for basketball. they have levels of abject poverty and desperation which drive youngsters to train and practice and play harder and longer. for some of them football or basketball is the only way out of the slums or barrios or the hoods in the case of the US. they dont have access to the electronic conveniences that bajans do so they arent distracted.
    Sound like west indian cricketers up to the 80’s doesnt it?
    when i see messi and bojan and the african teams in the under 17 world cup i shudder cause those teams would beat or senior squad. same thing with the NCAA basketball squads and the real problem is all of the youngsters from those squads dont become professionals and they are better than anything we have or can produce. We really are wasting time with Bball and football in this country. we have produced one footballer in the last 20 years with the skill to make it and that was Norman Forde and no basketballers ; sad the mentality and toughness wasnt there as a youngster but does that justify spending more resources?

  21. David Avatar
    David

    Agree in part. Remember that the central point we are making is to reallocate resources to other sports. In other words if we spend more money to improve facilities in bball,vball,fball etc comonsense suggests that we should see better results. All we need is to get our players ready for entry to US and other countries at the entry stage i.e.NCAA, MLB, Division 1,2,3 etc in England.

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