It’s true, West Indies players get plenty $ but lose anyway

LISTEN carefully to what I’m about to say. Put your ear closer to the page if you have to. It might come as a bit of a shock, but it’s a fact that West Indies Test cricketers earn a lot of money. Yes, it’s a staggering revelation, isn’t it? A new survey has “revealed” the average Test cricketer earns around US $5,000 a week. Not only that, but fearless pollsters have also discovered “even lesser-known players are keen on designer clothes, loads of jewelry and fast cars fuelled by the glut of money in the game.” Let us stop for a moment here. No doubt you will need to sit down and catch your breath while someone rushes off to fetch a glass of water. (Two-minute pause). Okay now? The press body of the West Indies Cricket Board was responsible for conducting this poll into the bleedin’ obvious and accompanied it with a snotty legal fax warning newspapers not to infringe their copyright by pinching it, or at least I think it was them.

Leaving aside the fact these people should be on their knees begging for all the free plugs they can get, most other newspapers (including this one) ripped off their survey regardless. This is in keeping with the “How to Succeed in Journalism” Rule 2 (b): “Let others do the work, however meaningless”. And so we were told there are players who earn “more than twice as much as the Prime Minister, when they cannot run out anyone or run properly to field a ball, let alone the country”. This proves one thing: The Honourable Prime Minister should have chosen a different career. Mr Manning Sir, you’re going to have to make a choice. Do you want to become Prime Minister — or would you prefer to captain the West Indies cricket team? “I’ll get my bat.” Inevitably, the cricketers’ poll was accompanied by tired comparisons to other professions. For instance, we were reliably informed the average cricketer earns 20 times more than a Grade “D” hospital nurse.

I have conducted my own survey and discovered there are average journalists out there earning 400 percent than a Grade “D” hospital nurse. Strangely, this comparison was not mentioned in the newspapers this week. Let us examine another instance. You might have read about the 2001 court case where multi-millionaire Phil Collins generously decided to claw back some of the ?50,000 he paid in royalties to his trumpeter and trombonist. Performing with someone as irritating as Collins obviously increases the going rate, but we should still consider how these musicians earn their money. Song starts. Boring drum roll bit. Singer wails he’s feeling something “In the air tonight”. Everyone ducks, just in case. Then the big moment. Trumpet: PARP! Piano bit. Bald bloke whines “You can’t hurry love”. Then another crescendo: Trombone: BWAH WHAA, PARP! Applause. Well done, lads. Here’s half a million quid.

Every day there are millions of people earning money far in excess of their talent (present company excepted). Every day there are good folk who earn considerably less than they deserve (present company included). It happens. Oddly enough, I have yet to see an editorial lambasting pop stars for earning more than nurses. The message being that it’s okay for some pre-pubescent twerp to earn millions by wiggling in time and miming along to a backing tape on Saturday morning TV. But put that same pre-pubescent twerp in a cricket kit on Saturday night television and his wages are held up as a sign that the values of our society have collapsed. Come on. Our cricket stars are paid so much because they play in the “best league in the world”. That’s right, they play in the world. Okay, so they don’t play in the “best league in the world”, they play here. But they are part of the richest league in the world and we should not be astonished to find they earn corresponding salaries. West Indies cricket is in the middle of a slump, despite the vast television revenue pouring into the game. Half the country watches cricket. The other half talks about it.

Yes, some of the salaries might seem a lot of money — and it is lot of money. But Naomi Campbell collects more than that for walking in a straight line. Look down the list of the richest 1,000 people in the world and not one cricketer would be among the elite. There are plenty of Earls, Lords and even a porn baron or two. But no cricketers. So I cannot see anything wrong with Test performers receiving their slice of the cake at last. There are plenty of smug, bearded oafs sitting in directors’ boxes who have been buying new Lexus vehicles on the back of the sport for years. Just as there are plenty of ex-cricketers who have had to sell their awards to keep a roof over their heads. Now that the modern player can afford to buy his own Lexus, however, the boardroom jokers still have the cheek to pass the costs to supporters. That is the real scandal. The West Indies Cricket Board will most likely try this disgusting piece of PR spin when they finalise negotiations with the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) over the planned implementation of the contract system in October. They will no doubt give this as the reason for the hike in season-ticket prices. You don’t need to conduct a survey to find out the only cheap shots come from the boardroom these days.

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