Why we need professional cricket league

THE EDITOR: Many reasons have been suggested for the decline of West Indies Cricket and a variety of proposals have been advanced to correct this situation. Alloy Lequay’s commentary in Newsday (25/05/04) is the most recent. Mr Lequay has made a great contribution to national and regional cricket and his opinion on such matters must be taken seriously. However, while his recommendations for changes at the administrative level would no doubt prove useful, I do not believe they will result in more than incremental improvement on the field. Indeed, I fear that he, like so many others, has missed the main reason for the failure of our cricket team. In my view, the fundamental reason for the continuing failure of the West Indies Cricket Team is an inadequate level of skill arising from insufficient practice. Brian Davis recently drew attention to this after the debacle in Jamaica against England.

High performance in almost any area of human endeavour requires long hours of intensive practice on an almost daily basis. This is not happening with our cricketers. To further make my case, consider the following: The successful West Indies Cricketers of the 1980s, when not playing Test cricket, played county cricket about five days each week for a substantial part of the year. This resulted in significant development and improvement in technique, which in turn resulted in victory on the field. As another example, Carl Hooper is considered a talented player who under-performed in the West Indies team. He withdrew and joined the Australia Cricket League where he played almost daily cricket. As a result, his skill level rose to such an extent (I think he won an award in Australia) that upon his return to the Caribbean, he easily forced his way back into the West Indies team with an extremely high runs aggregate in the regional tournament.

During his second term in the West Indies Team, because of reduced practice, his performance steadily declined. He again withdrew and now playing county cricket in England, his skill level has again risen to such an extent that last year, he became (according to a report) only the second player to score a century against every county. Compare this with the practice regime of the current West Indies players. The Test players, when not playing Test cricket are relaxing instead of playing first class cricket and the non-Test players when not playing regional cricket are playing only weekend club cricket. This is not sufficient for our players to compete with the world’s best players, all or most of whom play in professional leagues.

It is therefore my contention that the single most important action for a quantum leap forward in West Indies cricket is the establishment of a Professional Cricket League in the Caribbean. (I believe that the seven countries ranked above us all have active cricket leagues) This will allow cricketers to play high-level cricket throughout most of the year and ensure that their skill level is optimum. While this idea is not new, its critical importance has not fully been recognised. If steps are taken now, such a league can be established in about one year. This league, along with sound coaching programmes, use of technology and the many other good ideas advanced by Mr Lequay and others, can return West Indies to upper-level ranking within three years or less. On the other hand, if the league is not implemented, I suspect that we will remain mired at the lower levels, with only our great cricketing history to console us. The WICB must act now.

DR STEPHAN GIFT
Faculty of Engineering, UWI