SUNDAY 1ST MARCH, 2015 – UWI TODAY
9
UWI
TODAY
ON CRICKET
Rebuilding West Indies cricket
has been the heart of
discussions surrounding the sport for two decades. I
think we have reached the point where we have to turn
our back on cricket, in a manner of speaking, in order
to truly help it. I suggest that we step away a bit so we
can better understand what truly ails it. We need to see
cricket as part of the larger community of sports, and we
need to place that entire community within the context
of a society.
What has been happeningwithin cricket is essentially
what is happening throughout our societies. So what are
we really trying to rebuild?
It is about reshaping a culture that has evolved over
a relatively short time.
Nobody will argue that the Caribbean has been
dealing with downwardly spiralling societies. Many of
our societal problems are fuelled by declining standards,
discarded values and failed leadership. I am sure a
diligent sociologist can track the declines and show a
correlation between the enterprises of building societies
and building cricket.
If we narrow our focus to the cricket and continue
to isolate its current pathetic state to a list of narrowly
defined ills, then whatever desire we have to improve it,
will always be fruitless.
The people who run cricket, the people who play it,
the youngsters coming up within its precincts, they are
all creatures of our society. Not one of them comes to
cricket with a clean slate. They all carry the imprints and
conditioning of their pasts.
The cricket we play is configured by more than
technical ability. Indeed, what has made the game one of
such potential magnificence is its capacity to be shaped
by the quality of theminds at play. The greatest periods of
world cricket have been thosewhen its players possessed
sharp, critical, intellects to support their technical
competencies. Think about it.
We have had many technical interventions in 20
years, coaches and clinics galore, but we still have not seen
the kind of consistency that professional players ought
to manifest. We’ve seen enough of our players play like
a dream on occasion and then haunt us like nightmares
for the better part of a season. Why is that? They do not
lack ability.
What is missing is precisely the elements that have
dwindled away from our societies: respect, values,
commitment, discipline and sad to say, the ability to
think.
And we cannot make any headway with rebuilding
our cricket if we do not see our roles in its collapse. We
have to see it as a joint responsibility to fix it by addressing
our attention and efforts at the way we live, the way
we conduct ourselves and the values we uphold and
transmit.
We have to start fixing homes, schools and civic
society if we are to fix cricket.
DeryckMurray has spoken about his time on theWest
Indies teamand how it earnedworld respect, and theway
players felt about their role as ambassadors.
In Mr. Murray’s time, no real support came from the
West Indies Cricket Board. He once said that as far as
the Board was concerned, talented cricketers dropped
off trees and there was no need to invest in developing
them.
But the cricketers were part of a different culture.
For young men growing up in often impoverished
environments with little social advantages or prospects,
cricket was one of the ways in which a man could define
his masculinity. He could be recognized if he was good,
and because there was so much talent out there, he had
to be very good, and then he had to stay at that level or
he could lose his place.
It was also about proving that theWest Indian could
be as good as anyone else – and with the colonial past
lurking so close behind, these fellows were still walking
in its long shadows.
Those times are gone, and the fierce pride that was
evoked because men had to prove themselves against
those kinds of forces, has given way to another dubious
definition of masculinity.
Our women’s teammay nowbe undergoing a similar
journey of proving themselves, and that might be one
factor inhowpurposefully they are cultivating that culture
of champions.
But with regard to the men, we have aided and
abetted the development of a culture which elevates
consumerism, applauds anarchy, touts disrespectful
behaviour as the mark of the man, and reduces decency
to the hallmark of a wimp. Whereas a sound education
was the way to elevate oneself, now all you need is a gun
and some bling.
Changing that culture calls for leaders who are
unafraid to takemeasures that go against the status quo;
leaders who dare to invest inmeasures that will take time
to bear fruit, and leaders who arewilling towork with and
not against the people behind them.
There is a concept called emotional intelligence
that psychologists love. Basically, its components are
self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and
social skill. Good leaders, they argue, are those who are
emotionally intelligent – and this has been one of the
failings of our leaders.
“All across the Caribbean there is sickening evidence
of patently corrupt, inept, or dysfunctional Governmental
administrations on the one hand, and powerless and
distraught citizenries on the other hand,”wrote Barbadian
David Commissiong recently as he itemized examples up
and down the region, and tried to incite people power to
arrest the decline.
Is it that we are powerless, or have we retreated to
such a state of apathy that we can no longer discern
the strength we, as citizens, have to shape our own
destinies?
Strikingly, as the West Indies Cricket Board edges
towards the election of president and vice president, with
the incumbent, Jamaican Dave Cameron and Barbadian
Joel Garner vying for the top spot, the Jamaican Cricket
Association reversed its plan to support Garner and have
indicated support for Cameron.
Cameron has exposed the leanness of his mind with
the tasteless re-tweet on Chris Gayle that he has since
apologised for; will it change anyone’s vote?
(See Tony
Cozier’s columnon theelections, Page15.)
If it is treated
as a one-off slip and not an insight into the working of
his mind, then all of the WICB directors should pack up
and go away.
Fortunately, Gayle’s response was a record-breaking
215 in theWorld Cup match against Zimbabwe; so much
more civilized it was.
But it is the way of leadership in the region and in
that sense, cricket cannot be treated as an isolated sore
on a pristine body that only needs a topical application to
heal it and return it to a pristine state. Cricket fails when
we are failing. It is as simple as that.
Lead us
not
By Vaneisa Baksh
