Windies cricketers in court?

THERE is a case going on at the moment in which the West Indies Cricket team is being sued by various members of the public who claim to have been scalded by tea and coffee when in anger they watched the West Indies play in the Caribbean recently. This has distracted attention from another even more damaging case in which the West Indies Cricket team is being sued by people who are trying to get this team to change its name from West Indies to something else... Perhaps this brief extract from the case will give a clearer idea of what is at stake.

Counsel: Next witness, please. And your name is..?
Witness: West Indies.
Judge: Just a minute, if you please. I can’t help noticing that all the witnesses so far have been called West Indies. That is rather a remarkable coincidence.
Counsel: Not exactly, my Lord. The case is being brought by a bunch of people who are all called the West Indies public and who claim that their life has been made a misery by their name being used by a consortium of purveyors of fast talk under the name of West Indies cricketers.
Judge: I see. Will all your witnesses be called West Indies?
Counsel: No, my Lord. I intend to call among others Mr Wavell Hinds, a one time West Indies vice-captain.
Judge: Hinds? Or Heinz? Don’t tell me he objects to having Heinz’s Tomato Soup named after him!
Counsel: No, my Lord. I intend to find out if the Hinds and the West Indies opening position can now make common cause and are prepared to bury the hatchet after the massacre of Guyana and Barbados.
Judge: Good Lord. Thankfully the Caribbean football season has started again already?
Counsel: I believe it has my Lord.
Judge: Then we should all be very careful. Carry on with your witness.
Counsel: Your name is West Indies?
Witness: It is. Proud West Indies.
Counsel: Not the same as the tough and strong figures of the past such as Vivian Richards, Gordon Greendige and Andy Roberts....?
Witness: Yes, I am afraid so.
Counsel: May I offer my condolences?
Witness: You may, although it is far too late. Why oh why did this team in first South Africa for the World Cup and then against Australia in the Caribbean have to call itself West Indies and thus blight an entire surname? Australia never made this mistake. There is nobody called Mr Australia whose life has been ruined. There is, I hazard, no Mr England who had to change his name, and probably no India who had to do likewise. But what of all us West Indians whose lives have already been ruined by association with the maroon cap? My life has already been ruined. My footsteps are symbolically dogged by greasy litter bearing the name West Indies cricket. My nostrils are filled with the smell of instant charring and grilling in cheap cooking fat of teams do inferior to walk with us West Indians in the past...
Man in Public Gallery: Watch it!
Judge: Who said that?
Man in Public Gallery: I did! I am a troubleshooter for the West Indies Players Association lawyers, the most feared bunch in the Caribbean, who spend all our time watching for possible libel cases, and I want to confirm, as you all know, that West Indies does not use cheap cooking oil but only the finest ingredients, garnered throughout the world from hand-selected sources...
Judge: Get that man out of here!
The man is removed.
Thank you. I must warn the rest of you not to interrupt. I speak as a man who once ejected three lawyers defending the name “Champagne” from a court, and they don’t come tougher than that.
Man In Public Gallery: Yes they do!
Judge: Who said that?
Man: I did! I am a lawyer representing the sanctity of the trade name Coca-Cola in West Indies sponsorship! If anyone writes “Coke” with a small c, as in “coke”, I am right in there, guns blazing!
Judge: Then go and do it somewhere else! Remove him! After a titanic struggle, he is ejected.
Now please continue examining your witness, Mr Radish.
Counsel: Thank you, my Lord. Now, Mr West Indies, you object to the players who were in South Africa in February sharing the same name as you, but you surely cannot maintain that a group should remain anonymous. It must have a name of some kind. Do you think a man called Macintosh should go to court simply because a raincoat is called a Macintosh? Should a man called Burberry feel offended? Were a man to be called Mr. Rubber, should he?
Man in Public Gallery: Excuse me! I represent the only rubber company...
Judge: This may be a good place for an adjournment.
More of this high-profile case follows, unless the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) gang-gags me first...  Don’t dance around the questions, tell the truth. Please visit www.cornelis-associates.com for the best website management and change management.