?The West In­dies Un­der-19 crick­et team re­cent­ly re­turned home from its New Zealand World Cham­pi­onship tour. Con­grats to the crick­eters, for they re­turned with heads held high, hav­ing re­deemed them­selves with a fine­ly-won bronze medal. Con­grats, how­ev­er, are not due to the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB),�as the tour­ing lads re­ceived not a cent from it by way of salary/stipend or out-of-pock­et al­lowance. Imag­ine call­ing up our scions to par­tic­i­pate in a month-long, in­come-gen­er­at­ing world tour­na­ment on the oth­er side of the world on­ly for food and pas­sage. What? WICB thinks we've re­vert­ed to slav­ery days or some­thing?

Shame, shame, shame, WICB! Hence­forth I dub thee West In­dies Crick­et Break­ers. And shame, too, to the var­i­ous lo­cal crick­et boards, for they should have stepped up to the wick­et to see that their play­ers were ad­e­quate­ly com­pen­sat­ed, even if they had to dip in­to their own ex­pense bud­gets to do it. West In­dies crick­et break­ers, each and every one of you!

Richard Wm Thomas

Five Rivers, Arou­ca