JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, February 17, 2025

The depth of Barbados influence on Windies cricket

by

Andre E Baptiste
33 days ago
20250115

So the head­line above is a broad per­spec­tive, which all crick­et-lov­ing Bar­ba­di­ans, whether for­mer play­ers, cur­rent play­ers, as­pir­ing play­ers, or mere­ly the cit­i­zens of this coun­try (Bar­ba­dos), should be con­cerned about.

How­ev­er, the swift and se­vere re­al­i­ty is that that sort of think­ing ap­pears to have dis­si­pat­ed in re­cent years. There are some that throw the blame quite square­ly on the shoul­ders of the Bar­ba­di­an crick­et au­thor­i­ties. And whether it is an ap­par­ent dis­dain to­wards West In­dies crick­et be­cause of lead­er­ship bat­tles, that were lost in the past or just a mind­set of en­vy and jeal­ousy or as some may say, a per­pet­u­al de­sire to un­der­mine what can­not be ex­tin­guished or per­haps some oth­er ra­tio­nale that no one is aware about. We will not know for cer­tain, but there is a clear dis­con­nect with Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) and those that man­age the sports out of Bar­ba­dos.

The re­cent non-at­ten­dance at a meet­ing by both the Bar­ba­dos and Guyana crick­et of­fi­cials has hint­ed at some sort of open dis­qui­et and per­haps even dis­like among per­sons who have sat to­geth­er for years. 

The re­cent news that Ray­mon Reifer, who was cap­tain of the Bar­ba­dos team that did not play the CWI 50-Over fi­nal last year de­spite the in­struc­tions of the match ref­er­ee, has now been se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent Bar­ba­dos in the up­com­ing four-day re­gion­al tour­na­ment sug­gests a lot about how the sport is man­aged in the re­gion.

While we have been told that Reifer’s op­po­site num­ber, John Camp­bell, the cap­tain of the Ja­maican team that al­so failed to ap­pear for the 50 overs fi­nal, was banned, it ap­pears that Reifer, whether through an ap­peal (that ap­par­ent­ly is pend­ing), will be al­lowed to put on his whites and play crick­et again with­out any of­fi­cial judg­ment.

Be­low are ex­cerpts from the CWI re­lease is­sued on De­cem­ber 6, 2024, on the abort­ed 50 overs fi­nal:

Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) has an­nounced that Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons cap­tain John Camp­bell has been sus­pend­ed for four match­es fol­low­ing a Lev­el 3 Charge re­lat­ed to his con­duct dur­ing the CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Fi­nal against Bar­ba­dos Pride on No­vem­ber 23, 2024.  

The charge, is­sued by Match Ref­er­ee Re­on King in ac­cor­dance with the CWI Code of Con­duct for Play­ers and Of­fi­cials, re­lates to Camp­bell’s de­ci­sion to not at­tend the toss as in­struct­ed by the um­pires. In a let­ter to the Match Ref­er­ee, Camp­bell apol­o­gised for the dis­rup­tion.

“I sin­cere­ly re­gret any dis­rup­tion caused dur­ing the fi­nal and ac­knowl­edge that my ac­tions may have been per­ceived as re­sis­tance to the match of­fi­cials’ de­ci­sion,” Camp­bell stat­ed.

“It was nev­er my in­ten­tion to un­der­mine their au­thor­i­ty or bring the game in­to dis­re­pute. I ful­ly ac­knowl­edge the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing the in­tegri­ty of the game and the need for ad­her­ence to the rules and de­ci­sions of the of­fi­cials.”

CWI di­rec­tor of crick­et Miles Bas­combe con­firmed the sus­pen­sion, high­light­ing the im­por­tance of Camp­bell’s ad­mis­sion in de­ter­min­ing the sanc­tion.

“We ap­pre­ci­ate Mr. Camp­bell’s ac­knowl­edge­ment of the sit­u­a­tion and his sin­cere apol­o­gy. In light of his ad­mis­sion and demon­strat­ed re­morse, CWI has ap­plied the min­i­mum sanc­tion of a four-match ban for a Lev­el 3 of­fence as a mat­ter of le­nien­cy. This will be served dur­ing the 2025 CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Tour­na­ment,” he said.

Bas­combe al­so com­ment­ed: “This de­ci­sion re­in­forces the crit­i­cal role of cap­tains in up­hold­ing the val­ues of sports­man­ship and re­spect for the game’s in­tegri­ty. We trust that John will use this ex­pe­ri­ence to con­tin­ue con­tribut­ing pos­i­tive­ly to West In­dies crick­et and serve as a role mod­el mov­ing for­ward.

In ad­dress­ing the broad­er im­pli­ca­tions of the in­ci­dent, Bas­combe al­so com­ment­ed on the sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing Bar­ba­dos Pride cap­tain Ray­mon Reifer, who is fac­ing a sim­i­lar charge. 

“At this stage, Ray­mon Reifer has not re­spond­ed to the charges. Should he not re­spond, the mat­ter would pro­ceed to the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee. Our goal is to pro­mote ac­count­abil­i­ty and en­sure that all play­ers un­der­stand the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ism and re­spect on and off the field,” he said.

Since then, state­ments and com­ments have been cir­cu­lat­ed, re­port­ed­ly from a lawyer rep­re­sent­ing Reifer, who has stat­ed that he (Reifer) was not giv­en a fair chance to have his say on the mat­ter and the process may not have been cor­rect, or words to that ef­fect.

So, with­out be­ing told all the lat­est facts by CWI (via their web­site), we can on­ly as­sume that the Bar­ba­dos ap­peal, if it has been lodged, whether as a group or at least as the cap­tain, has not been heard as yet, and there­in lies an­oth­er set of con­cerns and pos­si­ble ques­tions as fol­lows:

1. Why is the ap­peal tak­ing so long, if in­deed there is one on?

2. Is the Crick­et West In­dies dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee so busy dur­ing the Christ­mas fes­tiv­i­ties that it is un­able to ad­dress this mat­ter?

3. How should Ja­maica and their banned cap­tain ac­cept all of this?

4. Af­ter Mr. Bas­combe spoke on the im­por­tance, and right­ful­ly so, of 'Cap­tains,' are we wit­ness­ing dou­ble stan­dards by CWI?

5. Is Crick­et West In­dies afraid of the rulers of Bar­ba­dos crick­et? … We can on­ly hope that there is no con­duit to an­oth­er ob­jec­tive with CWI elec­tions on the hori­zon.

6. Or is there a be­lief that the Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos, with some prod­ding, may call a meet­ing with some of the ap­par­ent­ly dis­en­chant­ed ex­ec­u­tives in Bar­ba­dos crick­et, no mat­ter their po­lit­i­cal flavour, and over a glass or two set­tle this mat­ter.?

In ex­am­in­ing the CWI web­site, there is lit­tle ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion on this mat­ter, and this should not be swept un­der the car­pet, and the re­gion needs to take as­sertive ac­tion to pre­vent a re­oc­cur­rence.

CWI must not let Bar­ba­dos es­cape un­pun­ished and Ja­maica suf­fer just be­cause of any fear of a dog­fight. It is al­ready ob­vi­ous that Bar­ba­dos is will­ing to risk the lega­cy of West In­dies crick­et, de­spite all that is be­ing said by some jour­nal­ists in that coun­try.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored