Committing suicide or what?

Tony Becca, Contributor

MICHAEL HOLDING, Jamaica's greatest fast bowler and one of the greatest produced by the West Indies, believes that with all its problems, West Indies cricket, will never die, and I sincerely hope that has so often been the case, he is right.

There is no denying the fact, however, that West Indies cricket is doing every thing to commit suicide.

Day after day, in fact it is almost more like hour after hour, something goes wrong with West Indies cricket.

When it is not the board and the players association quarrelling, it is the board and the sponsors. When it is not the board and the selectors fighting over whether a player should be sent home or not, it is the board, its doctors, and injured players. And recently it has been the board and the selection committee quarrelling, in public, over the selection of the captain.

And it has not been on one occasion only: it has been on two occasions, a few weeks apart.

In the first instance, the board and the selection committee locked horns over who should be the captain of the team to England and, after threatening to withdraw their services as selectors, the selectors won and Ramnaresh Sarwan and not Daren Ganga was selected.

In the second instance, the board and the selection committee again squared-off over who should be captain of the one-day and Twenty/20 series in England and Ireland, and again after threatening to resign, the selectors won and Christopher Gayle and not Ganga was selected.

Can the two sides be right or can the two sides be wrong?

Both sides wrong

As far as I am concerned, both sides were wrong on the issue of selecting the captains, but more so the selectors and for one simple reason.

The simple reason is that while the board traditionally asks the selectors to recommend someone as the captain, it is the board's responsibility to select the captain, and while they have a right to do so, and particularly if their recommendations are constantly rejected, it seems that by threatening to resign, the selectors are behaving as if it is their right to select the captain and that the board has no right to say no.

The selectors' responsibility, along with the captain, is to select the team, as far as I know and for as long as I can remember they are only expected to pass it to the board for approval, and again as far as I know, the board can only suggest a change based on matters of discipline.

The selection of the captain is a different kettle of fish, however. The captain represents the board, the captain can be selected not only because of his ability to score centuries or to take handful of wickets but also because of other qualities, the captain is the board's representative on the field and until there is a change, that is how it is.

In the most recent case, the case between Ganga and Gayle, the board, based on information it has received, may have decided that as a captain, as someone representing it and the people of the West Indies, Ganga was a better choice than Gayle, and again, whether it was right or wrong, it was and is their choice to make.

Memory lane

Remembering that there was talk of omitting Gayle from the team to England because of some kindof indiscipline, remembering that managers after managers, series after series, tour after tour, and year after year, have failed to report anyone for anything, to say that any suggestion of indiscipline on Gayle's part by the board is wrong because Gayle has never been charged just does not ring right.

The selectors right around the West Indies have been behaving as if they control West Indies cricket. That apart from selecting the team, they have a right to tell the board what to do, and remembering that the board members are elected and they are not, that cannot be right.

The selectors claim that they had selected the team before the board came up with Ganga as the captain, that by coming up with Ganga as the captain, the team would have had to be changed, that by doing so, by coming up with Ganga as the captain, the board was therefore interfering with the selection of the team and they may be right.

There are some questions they should answer, however. How come a team had been selected with Gayle as the captain without the knowledge of the board. And following the tradition in which the captain is selected first and then becomes a part of the selection committee, how come the team was selected without Gayle's input?

Is it that the three-man selection committee is now a law unto itself or wants to be a law unto itself?

Change the image

Maybe it is a simple case where, based on information reaching it, the board wants to replace some of the players in an effort to change the image of West Indies cricket and eventually its performance. Maybe it is a case where the selectors, in their effort to win, want to put the best players in the field regardless and maybe it is a case where the board wants the best man as captain and the selection committee wants the best XI in the field.

Whatever it is, the continued quarrelling, the constant fighting under the spotlight is not good for West Indies cricket. It is time the board, the players association and the selectors to realise that they are all working for West Indies cricket and that they are not elected or selected to feed, to fan, their own egoes and that they need to respect each other.

Begging for a fight

Maybe in the case of the board, more so its present president, and the selectors, it is a situation where neither one has any respect for the other, where one set believe that as board members they have control over everything, where one set believe that as ex-players, some of them really great ex-players, they know the game and no one who never played at the highest level can talk to them, and where the two are simply begging for a fight.

That is not good for West Indies cricket. In everything in life there has to be a little give and little take and the board and its selectors need to act like big men and to work together like big men.

Remembering that Ganga, the man who was supported twice by the board and defeated twice by the selectors who threatened to resign if he were made the captain, it certainly is not good for the team now engaged in a Test match in England.

No wonder Ganga was dismissed first ball yesterday.