WEST INDIES cricket is in enough crisis without having members of the administration and the executive of the West Indies Players Association engaging in a media slug fest.

The recent and not so recent performances of the West Indies cricket team are disheartening, despite the recent Natwest Trophy success against England and it does not help to have the WICB CEO Bruce Aanansen and the WIPA boss Dinanath Ramnarine going “toe to toe” over what appears, in my humble view, to be a personal conflict.

Without the facts, as these meetings between the WICB and the WIPA are closed-door affairs, I am sure that both parties are culpable to some measure and perhaps they could both look at the way they are approaching the relevant issues and try and recognise that there are going to be bitter conflicts but because of their strong personalities and the sensitive and complex nature of contractual negotiations, they need not have to take the issues down to a personal level.

In firing his salvo at Aanansen, Ramnarine opened himself up to a barrage of fire and none of it friendly.

President Ken Gordon exposed some of the deep seated issues and apparently, one can easily conclude that Ramnarine, on the basis of Gordon’s letter, is out of his depth in these negotiations.

It will be interesting to see how Ramnarine responds to Gordon’s letter. The WICB itself cannot take the moral high ground because their recent administration has been so tainted, who could over look the fact that the last five arbitration proceedings, the Board has lost every one.

This is like a bad marriage. The issues appear to be irreconcilable, but certainly they can’t be.

Perhaps, Ramnarine can give the WICB “win” (hell, they need more than anyone else), and accept the olive branch extended by Gordon in the end of the letter.

Let this issue not descend any further and hopefully both parties could work toegther in the spirit of mutual respect to forge a better future.

Gordon is right!
All the stakeholders need to work together to solve the dilema West Indies cricket finds itself, 12 years after the ceremonial fall from the top when Australia, astutely led by Mark Taylor, reclaimed the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy at Sabina Park in 1995.

Our cricket has gone backward, full cycle: after half a century of domination, England are thumping us at will -- please forgive me for not placing too much significance on the value of a win in a 20-20 International and two wins in a three-match ODI series -- and it does not seem realistic in the immediate future that we will even get a peep of the “Holy Grail” of West Indies cricket, the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy.

Amid this dismal scenario a report was released this week which recommends that the WICB should be abandoned as currently constituted.

The authors of this report -- PJ Patterson, Sir Allister McIntyre and Ian McDonald -- cannot be dismissed lightly, especially as McIntyre actively serves on the WICB.

Valid as the criticisims may be though, I am intuitively sceptical of the expanded West indies Cricket Commission, which is supposed to include members of the territorial boards, players and officials, women, the Caribbean community, the private sector and civil society.

I would have thought that former players, the legends of West Indies cricket, would have a major and distinct role to play in any new administrative structure and find the proposed new Cricket Commission to be vague on the participation of “women, the Caribbean Community, the private sector and civil society”.

Given the failure in the past of lofty Caribbean institutions and the territorial conflicts we have at a regional level, I am warming to the idea of this expanded West Indies Cricket Commission.

Too many cooks spoil the broth, may be apt in this particular instance. But Patterson, McIntyre and McDonald are far more qualified than I am.

However, I am urging caution. Yes, mistakes were made by previous and probably this current West Indies Board, but, in the persuit of reform, we may not have to reinvent the wheel to get West Indies cricket back on track.

I am optimistic of the future of West Indies cricket. I think we have the talent still, but I think not enough is being done to market and promote the game as “the game” of the region.

For example, what has the West Indies done as a community to instill national (or regional) pride on the exploits of West Indies cricketers and teams over the years.
Why are former plaers and media personalities complaining that the current crop of West Indies players don’t know anything about their cricket legacy, are not familiar with the former greats and are clueless about the history of West Indies cricket, unless of course, they were exposed to some foreign-produced documentary in England or Australia while on tour there.

What do we, the West Indies cricketing comunity, have as archives?

The legends at the Sticky Wicket Restaurant in Antigua?

We are not serious folks.
Yes, we have some literature, but nobody seems to be writing on Test series anymore, not that there is any great attraction in writing that England is hammering us 3-0.
Cricket as romance is dead, but maybe with some self-belief and determination we can turn things around.

Cricket is not Trinidad and Tobago football.
Yes, there are problems, hurculean ones even, but cricket is not in a stranglehold.
The money generated by West Indies cricket at least appears to be circulating across the region and not benefiting one person or the one family as it appears to be happening with Trinidad and Tobago football.

As soon as I return to the country after my month in Cuba, a month away from information as all that was available was in Spanish and I am completely hopeless in languages, I read where the national footballers of this country were being labelled as “greedy”.

What I found most offensive about the remark was that it was made by the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation’s “special advisor”, Austin “Jack” Warner.

Now if that isn’t the zenith of hypocricy, I don’t know what is.