Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) pres­i­dent Dr Kishore Shal­low has rekin­dled the old fire stick of in­su­lar­i­ty in West In­dies crick­et. He must, how­ev­er, be care­ful that once start­ed, the blaze does not con­sume him. More im­por­tant­ly, it can rage anew in the tin­der­box that hous­es West In­dies crick­et of to­day.

In typ­i­cal po­lit­i­cal style, Pres­i­dent Shal­low, whose tenure at the helm of CWI has done lit­tle to re­vive the re­gion­al game, re­sponds to the crit­i­cism of the ab­ject fail­ure of the West In­dies in the just con­clud­ed Test se­ries against Aus­tralia, 0-3, in­clu­sive of the dis­grace­ful 27-run to­tal in the fi­nal match at Sabi­na Park, with at­tempts at di­ver­sion and bom­bast.

In­stead of un­der­stand­ing the pain of West In­di­ans, which is felt deep with­in their be­ing, he coun­ters by rel­e­gat­ing such gen­er­a­tional hurt to a dis­like of coach Dar­ren Sam­my be­cause he is St Lu­cian.

What a sad com­men­tary for the CWI pres­i­dent to at­tack West In­di­ans, young and old, those who have felt the pride and joy of West In­dies crick­et and now the sor­row of de­feat, in this way. More­over, he adopts such a po­lit­i­cal gim­mick in the face of the re­al­i­ty of the fail­ure of suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions to do what has been nec­es­sary for more than two decades to re­vive this great­est gift that West In­di­ans have giv­en to the world.

Just in case Pres­i­dent Shal­low missed it, the core of the crit­i­cism has been di­rect­ed at his ex­ec­u­tive, which fired a suc­cess­ful coach of the Test team and heaped coals of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties on Sam­my by giv­ing him the Test, ODI and T20 teams. 

Fur­ther, the crit­i­cisms have been lev­elled against the CWI for its bril­liant “un­wis­dom” in re­plac­ing a pan­el of se­lec­tors head­ed by a chair­man and mak­ing Sam­my the Tsar of “all that he sur­veys.” In fact, the pen­e­trat­ing analy­ses have been far more di­rect­ed at Pres­i­dent Shal­low and his board than at coach Sam­my. Maybe he will now say the crit­i­cism of him is be­cause he is from St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

In­ci­den­tal­ly, it is the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves who re­ferred to his coun­try­man (Shal­low) as a non-achiev­er. Maybe he will turn on the Prime Min­is­ter as an an­ti-small is­lander.

Re­gard­ing his so­lu­tion of get­ting the greats of West In­dies crick­et to as­sem­ble in what in T&T terms can be called a “crash pro­gramme,” how long has it been pop­u­lar opin­ion in the re­gion that suc­ces­sive boards should use our great store­house of crick­et cham­pi­ons to lend their ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­per­tise to build on the foun­da­tion they left be­hind? Is Pres­i­dent Shal­low seek­ing to im­pli­cate our greats in a scheme which will ul­ti­mate­ly lay blame on them if their ef­forts can­not pro­vide an overnight in­jec­tion of wis­dom and prac­tice?

How many re­ports have gone to the CWI since the PJ Pat­ter­son de­c­la­ra­tion? What of those of Sir Den­nis By­ron, the Whe­by and Charles Wilkin re­ports? Have the rec­om­men­da­tions been im­ple­ment­ed?

If the West In­di­an crick­et­ing na­tion is to gain any trust in Pres­i­dent Shal­low and the CWI, they have to im­me­di­ate­ly have Sam­my fo­cus as coach of the T20 team and re­turn to the se­lec­tion com­mit­tee sys­tem; his po­lit­i­cal di­ver­sion has failed.