Bat and ball / Paul Moon / 07 December 2007 /

Pablo Luna - Moonlighting for Betfair. Pablo looks at the demise of West Indies cricket.

West Indian hit rock bottom last week when losing to the rag tag and bobtails of cricket that is Zimbabwe. What is wrong with West Indian Cricket? Is the crisis benign or malignant?

Initially it was thought that this was just a trough (as in peaks and troughs) that they were going through but I can identify why it is much worse than expected. Since the demise of the Commonwealth the youth of the Caribbean Islands have distanced themselves from old England and eloped with baseball cap and rap music to be embraced by America.

The sugar-dominated economy is a thing of the past, tourism rules and is king, with visitors and investment coming mostly from the United States. The West Indies have become a suburb of Miami. Cricket has lost its cultural primacy. Basketball became a sexier sport for the young, with the soaring black millionaires of the NBA as role models.

In an interview Clive Lloyd said the reasons for the precipitous decline could be traced to inaction and complacency on the part of the West Indies Cricket Board. Part of that is true but also too simplistic. My view is that the West Indies team have permanently lost their competitive spirit. Unity has vanished, the calypso energy has evaporated. They are psychologically damaged and psychologically mired in an aura of underdog status from which it is unlikely to recover with the existing crop of players. This unexplained phenomena is exacerbated by persistent feuding within the team.

A strategic plan charting the way forward for West Indies cricket over the next five years is expected to be produced by March 2008. Recently appointed president Julian Hunte of the West Indies Cricket Board has given that assurance. He went on to say that failure was not an option and his own presidency will be subject to stern performance-based criteria - fighting talk! I look forward to its proposals and wonder if they will be able to find that lost conveyor belt of fast bowlers.

The recent debacle against Zimbabwe was a new low. Shivnarine Chanderpaul's unbeaten century was in vain as West Indies lurched to a shock defeat in their first ODI. West Indies' plight was made worse by their lifeless effort in the field, always a sign of disintegration. They have since won the next three matches taking a 3-1 lead.

I am bewildered about the dropping of Corey Collymore and the absence of Ramnaresh Sarwan from the squad for the South Africa leg of the tour. Sarwan had an injury to an ankle but was expected to be ok. You cannot help but speculate whether politics are involved. Without those two a thrashing by the Proteas is in the offing.

There is no doubt world cricket needs a strong West Indian team so perhaps the ICC should play a more constructive role in West Indies cricket to ensure the well-being and sustainability of the game in the Caribbean. If world cricket loses the West Indies it will have lost one of its charismatic assets. Their regional cricket competition is deprived and they no longer play county cricket. They have not planned for the future and with the distractions of modern life West Indies cricket have suffered the most.

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