Open your eyes, choose the right shot
MAJOR League Cricket has launched in the United States with all the fanfare and excitement that we expected. An important national resource is activated in the US cricket production line and we can expect the US to continue to climb the rankings in due course.
It’s not rocket science and it’s all so predictable. Then why is it so difficult to understand where we have fallen down, and how the very thing that helped to make us a success in the past is now partly to blame for our demise, this amorphous “West Indies” amalgam.
In the modern sports paradigm, to consistently compete at the elite level you need a production line, well-heeled by commercial or national resources and preferably, like most other countries, both. Our struggles commercially stem from our size, geographic dispersion, and economic reality. And our inability to generate sustainable national resources lies squarely with the non-existence of a WI nation.
I gather the concepts of “production line” and “national resources” are difficult to grasp for some so let me illustrate using a simplified version of our athletics programme, juxtaposed with our bauxite industry. Like any production line it starts with raw material, in this case people. From our population we extract young athletic talent, in the same way bauxite ore is extracted from the earth. The more we can mine, the more we can produce and the wider choice of end product.
We apply training facilities, coaches, nutrition, and other resources along the way, like quality competition. Champs is a phenomenal resource that adds heat and high pressure in a passionate kiln to extract the more refined “alumina” from the raw ore. Empirical data is accumulated and analysed constantly so we know with the quantity and quality ore going in at one end, alumina refined and aluminum will protrude at the end of the line. JAAA does not need to expend any commercial resources yet, and can choose the best of all these shiny aluminum sheets coming off the line every year, adding any necessary finishing touches, and importantly eliciting national pride. Ask our athletes how driven they are to represent Jamaica at the Olympics or World Championships, stand on that podium, see the Jamaican flag raised, hear the anthem played, sense an adoring nation, and bask at the pinnacle of the sport amongst their international peers.
Conversely, our cricket raw material is dwindling, with less ore being fed in and therefore less alumina to refine and end product supplied. I use anecdotal evidence here since, unlike most countries, there is no publicly available data to examine. But show me evidence that I am wrong. We know Netherlands has 6,500 registered cricketers across its age groups. Ireland 52,000; 200,000 in the US; and a mere three million in India. How many do we have? Raw material reserves of most have grown consistently over the past 30 years while ours has declined. Our national resource inputs of facilities, equipment, etc lags these countries as well.
High school cricket practice in Jamaica today is no different from when I played 50 years ago, when Test cricketers played and practised right alongside me in club cricket and had virtually the same measly hour or so of net batting practice per week before match day. Do we really believe we can produce an elite professional cricketer today with the same production line built for another century? Tell me of another product that did not develop, modernise and adapt its production line, that still thrives today.
We need to examine the very structure of WI cricket to understand its demise. The fact is, we have neither commercial nor national resources that are sufficient. The former is understood and will take considerable effort and an unprecedented International Cricket Council (ICC) change of attitude. But the latter is within our control. Of course we will never have the comparative national resources of bigger, richer countries but that’s besides the point. Isn’t it better to harness national resources than not? And hasn’t our athletic programme shown what can be accomplished if you do? Try to replicate that programme across the region and call it the WI Track Team, and it would fail.
I have no desire to destroy an institution I love but can we not look at the real issues faced and explore solutions, no matter how novel, without the emotional or superficial first reaction? We don’t have national resources because a WI nation doesn’t exist and geopolitical realities trump any rational discussion or construct of same. But Jamaican, Barbadian, Trinidadian, etc nations do exist. We must harness what we have!
Take WI’s obvious raw material shortage. More than half the total population from which to mine talent sits moribund in Jamaica, with fast-fading interest in extracting it. Yet Cricket West Indies could never, nor should it, overly spend its scant commercial resources to revive and harness same. The accusations of insularity and favouritism would stifle any deployment. In which other industry would half the basic raw material not receive special attention if it lay rotting in a warehouse? That’s our responsibility as a nation, but without the incentive of an international team flying the Jamaican flag, how can any impetus exist? The difference in national mobilisation for the Reggae Boyz to play Trinidad & Tobago in the old Shell Caribbean Cup versus a FIFA World Cup qualifier should be instructive.
So too the experience of “lesser” but rising cricketing nations. Netherlands, now ranked 15th, is one of 84 countries currently playing T20 Internationals with national plans, managed by an organisation charged with national responsibility, held accountable by proud citizens. The final product is a national team that will play in international tournaments like World Cups and even one day, perhaps the Olympic Games.
I saw the Netherlands plan at ICC in 1998 and scoffed at their ambition, oblivious to the Twenty20 super-catalyst that would emerge. Just look at them now.
Japan, now with 3,000 registered players and ranked 61st, reached the 2020 Under-19 T20 World Cup, the team selected from their national academy created in 2018. This, while Jamaica mutedly celebrates regional U-19 victory that leads nowhere. The Japan Cricket Association (JCA) has public ambitions of where it is taking Japanese cricket, including to the World Cup and the Olympics, because it can. That JCA can likely provide data on the number of fast bowlers, spinners, wicketkeepers, and batsmen in production at each stage of its fledgling production line is revealing. Could our Jamaica Cricket Association do the same?
I listened as a delusional cricket official regaled the then-impending WI vs India match a “sell out” and proclaimed how Test cricket was “alive and well in Dominica”, images of empty seats telling a different story despite the Government giveaway of free tickets.
Let’s not continue to delude ourselves and drive blindly, ignoring the waiting slips cordon. We need to open our eyes, see the onrushing future, and choose the right shot.
Editor’s note: Chris Dehring is the former WICB chief marketing executive and CEO of ICC CWC 2007. With over 30 years in the business of sports, he has negotiated multimillion-dollar TV and sports rights deals across the world, including the English Premier League, WICB and ICC events, and led the Caribbean’s hosting of Cricket World Cup in 2007. In 2001 he conceptualised and launched Sportsmax, the region’s first 24/7 sports channel, now broadcast in 26 countries, and was an integral founder of the famous ‘Mound’ party stand. He represented Jamaica in both football and cricket at the under-19 level, and played for Real Mona and Kingston Cricket Club in the Major League and Senior Cup, respectively.