West In­dies crick­et is far too im­por­tant to the preser­va­tion and de­vel­op­ment of Caribbean iden­ti­ty for the peo­ples of this re­gion to con­tin­ue ac­cept­ing the shame­ful medi­oc­rity which pass­es for the squad that rep­re­sents us in first class crick­et. While a rapid re­turn to the hal­cy­on days of the 15-year pe­ri­od in which West In­dies crick­et dom­i­nat­ed every team in the world may not be on the cards, the least that the team's crick­et fans should be guar­an­teed is that the best 11 crick­eters, who are fit and qual­i­fied to rep­re­sent the re­gion, are cho­sen at all times. Last month, Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter Por­tia Simp­son Miller, speak­ing at the awards cer­e­mo­ny of that coun­try's crick­et as­so­ci­a­tion, ques­tioned the rea­sons for for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Chris Gayle's ex­clu­sion from the West In­dies team and called on the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) to re­solve the im­passe that has kept him from rep­re­sent­ing the re­gion for more than a year. As a re­gion­al leader who, no doubt, un­der­stands the im­por­tance of crick­et to the Caribbean psy­che, Prime Min­is­ter Simp­son Miller's com­ments were quite in or­der. The same can­not be said for the WICB's re­sponse, in which it re­gret­ted her com­ments, ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that she had not been prop­er­ly briefed and then im­plored her to use her good of­fice to urge Gayle to re­tract the state­ments he made in a ra­dio in­ter­view.

At play here is the fact that the body that has been man­dat­ed to rep­re­sent West In­dies crick­et is­sued a state­ment in which it pub­licly raked a re­gion­al Prime Min­is­ter over the coals for the sug­ges­tion that a prob­lem should be speed­i­ly and sen­si­bly re­solved. It is shame on the WICB that it could have is­sued such a dis­re­spect­ful and, frankly, dis­grace­ful­ly no­to­ri­ous state­ment with­out both­er­ing to con­sult the rel­e­vant Ja­maican crick­et rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The is­suance of such an ill-ad­vised and in­ap­pro­pri­ate state­ment in­stant­ly dis­qual­i­fied any­one who con­tributed to its draft­ing or ap­proved its dis­sem­i­na­tion from mem­ber­ship on the WICB or as its em­ploy­ee. But, re­gret­tably, it is a shame on all West In­dies crick­et fans that they have not risen up and launched a cam­paign to purge those who now pre­side over what may be the last rites of the proud lega­cy that was be­queathed to the re­gion by the likes of Clive Lloyd, Vi­vian Richards, Michael Hold­ing, Mal­colm Mar­shall, Gor­don Greenidge, Desmond Haynes and Deryck Mur­ray. At the week­end, for­mer An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter, Lester Bird, added a lit­tle fu­el to the flick­er­ing flame of dis­con­tent and un­ease that is be­ing felt through­out the re­gion.

While some of Mr Bird's lan­guage may have been in­tem­per­ate, his ur­gent call for a "new struc­ture to pro­pel West In­dies crick­et for­ward" is well timed and well placed. Fur­ther, Mr Bird's sug­ges­tion that Gayle was too im­por­tant to the suc­cess of the re­gion­al side to be iso­lat­ed and his call on the WICB to "take the lead" in find­ing a so­lu­tion to the long-run­ning im­passe were cer­tain­ly spot-on. If the WICB does not feel that one of its main re­spon­si­bil­i­ties is to en­sure that the best team pos­si­ble rep­re­sents the West In­dies at all times, then clear­ly it is not part of the so­lu­tion. In­stead of is­su­ing a pub­lic state­ment whose on­ly in­ten­tion was to hu­mil­i­ate and den­i­grate the re­cent­ly re-elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader of the coun­try that is the largest con­stituent mem­ber of the re­gion­al crick­et board, the WICB should have sought out a re­spect­ed in­ter­me­di­ary (like for­mer Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter PJ Pat­ter­son) to me­di­ate an end to this im­broglio, which has sure­ly made the re­gion the laugh­ing stock of the crick­et­ing world. The board should have found some way to get Gayle to is­sue an ac­cept­able apol­o­gy for the com­ments he made. As it stands, we call on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to join with her Cari­com col­leagues to pro­duce the in­ter­ven­tion that will rid the re­gion of those who have brought its crick­et to the low­est point pos­si­ble.